


Life with a Demon

by GemNika



Series: JackaLu Week 2016 [1]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood Kink, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Masochism, Menstruation Kink, Romance, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 12:12:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16429172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemNika/pseuds/GemNika
Summary: JackaLu Week 2016 entries. Their meeting wasn't the best, and no one would have expected them to come together and find love with one another, but somehow they did.





	1. Summon

**Author's Note:**

> My entries for JackaLu Week 2016 weren't written with the intent of being part of a single story. I realized after the fact (thanks to MadSoullessQueen's insight) that they actually all go together -- with the exception of two entries that are uploaded as their own separate stories.

 

Lucy stumbled through the rubble that was left in the wake of Fairy Tail's victory over Tartarus, her saddened mocha eyes taking in everything she passed. It all looked the same as it had three months before, when they'd been able to rid the world of Face. When the Dragon Slayers lost their parents. When Natsu and Happy decided that it was time for them to leave to train, or so she hoped.

Three months and nothing had been done to try and remove the hideous scars in the earth that were left from the war with those demons. She shivered while walking through the place she had nearly been drowned by Torafuzar. A chill swept over her as she stepped and paused where Keyes had been standing when Juvia destroyed him.

Still, she forced herself to move on. She wasn't there to look at those places, but to answer the odd letter that she'd gotten in the mail just two days prior. The same letter that was clutched in her hand and acting as her sole source of courage right then. Her other hand held tightly to the broken key that she'd made into a necklace.

Wind whistled eerily through the large archway she passed through, and Lucy paused once again to close her eyes against the sudden swell of pain in her soul. This was the place. Where'd she'd had no other choice but to sacrifice her oldest spirit, all to save her family in Fairy Tail, to save the ones that hadn't been able to keep the guild together after Makarov ordered they disband.

"Aquarius…"

There was no magic in the key any longer, but she still felt some connection to the mermaid spirit. Lucy knew it was just in her heart, her memories. She would never forget the way Aquarius had screeched every time she was summoned, or even what it had been like to try and return her to normal during the Zodiac Eclipse incident. The blonde still wasn't sure which was more terrifying - Aquarius as a child or just her on a regular day.

But with the sense of nostalgia, no matter how painful, Lucy found her eyes opening and the torrent of emotions within her settling down again. The tears in her eyes were quickly blinked back, and she took the first hesitant step through the archway to look upon the place where everything for her had really changed.

What she hadn't been expecting was to see a small fire off in one corner. Or the hunched form of someone wearing a cloak while warming their hands over the crackling flames. It was the middle of December, so she couldn't really blame them. This place was definitely chilly.

Before she took another step, Lucy looked back down to the odd, elegant script on the letter she'd been sent.

_Come to where you gave her up. There's something you need to see._

That was it. It was cryptic, creepy as hell, but it had piqued her interest. No one in the guild knew Lucy had given up Aquarius, that she was aware of. And, if anyone  _had_  known, they didn't say anything about it to her - most likely out of respect, or just not knowing what to say.

Of course, the letter had also given the blonde a case of the heebie jeebies like no other. The 'This is a Trap' alarm in her head was going off as soon as she started reading it, but she'd reasoned with herself for all of five minutes before packing a small bag and heading out of Crocus. Her interview with Jason was supposed to be right then, and she hadn't even thought to call and let him know that she would need to reschedule it. Something about this seemed more important, no matter how scary it was to go off on her own without her team there to back her up just in case.

Holding tightly to the letter, she made her way across the uneven ground and stopped several feet behind the hunched, cloaked figure.

"You really came."

Lucy's eyes widened at the deep, rasping voice that came from beneath the hood, her body locking up in an instant. No breath passed through her lips. The broken key dug into her palm as she clenched her hand around it. She'd know that voice anywhere. It plagued her every dream, her every nightmare. Every time she woke up breathless and screaming, his voice still echoed in the air around her and in her mind. His wicked grin, his sharp teeth and black hands sickened her and had her rushing off to the bathroom, staying just behind her eyelids every time she closed her eyes.

"I needed you to come, y'know?" he whispered.

"J-Jackal…"

"Yep," he chuckled quietly, slowly turning to look at the terrified blonde over his shoulder while he pushed his hood down. "Come have a seat. I've gotta talk to you."

An airy whimper left her as the edges of her vision darkened ominously. He looked exactly the same. Blonde hair with pointed, furry ears poking out. White fingerless gloves that reached up to his elbows, with black diamonds running up the length of them. Golden, nearly glowing eyes, terrifyingly pointed teeth. The small, canine nose, with black diamond-shaped spots surrounding his eyes. "Y-You're… You're dead…"

"No," he sighed, his gaze returning to the fire as he turned away from the blonde. "C'mon. Sit down."

Lucy wasn't sure what it was that made her feet move, but she found herself getting closer and closer to the demon and sitting on the ground a few feet from him. Just far enough that he couldn't reach her without getting up, but close enough so that she could still soak up some of the warmth from the fire. She sat in silence, her muscles tensed and waiting for him to strike her down. Surely, he'd sent her that letter to lure her out and kill her for  _trying_  to kill him. She'd been so sure he was dead, though.

The two enemies sat in silence for a long while, with only the sounds of the wood of the fire cracking as small embers rose from its heart. Everything else faded, the sounds of the breeze that blew by, the small creaks here and there from some parts of the structure that were trying to stay upright. Lucy could swear she heard damned souls wailing in the distance though.

"You've probably got some things to say," he finally said, his eyes not leaving the fire. "And, I take full responsibility for you having to do what you did."

Lucy's brow furrowed in confusion, and she lifted her gaze hesitantly to look at him. His thin brow was pinched, and she found herself further flummoxed when she saw his pointed teeth chewing restlessly on his lower lip. "I… Well, yeah," she replied, her shoulders slumping in defeat. Why he hadn't killed her yet was beyond her. Maybe he just wanted to chat before she was blown to smithereens.

"So," he said, looking to the blonde and locking his gaze on hers, "What do you want to say to me?"

Lucy was breathless as she was pulled into the golden pools of his eyes. These same eyes haunted her every day and night. She could still feel their cold glare raking over her body from the day she and Natsu had first met Jackal. But, even though they were the same eyes, something was wrong about how he was looking at her. Jackal was insane - that was something she knew as well as she knew her name - but he looked lucid, calm… and something else she wasn't entirely sure how to name.

Her eyes narrowed only slightly, and Jackal watched as her lips tightened while she continued watching him. When he flexed his fingers against the chilled December air, he saw her flinch before she could get herself under control. That was something he'd expected, to be honest. After what he'd put her through, he was surprised she wasn't already just screaming and running away.

"I've got a lot to say to you, I guess," she whispered finally, "But you probably already know what it is."

"I hurt you," he nodded, looking down at his hands with a frown. "Your friends, your guild, plenty of people you were trying to protect. And your spirit."

Lucy's arms wound around her waist and she brought her knees to her chest. "That's an understatement."

"That's the closest I can come to saying it," he sighed. "I don't know how else to… Nevermind."

Lucy frowned as another soft breeze blew through the area and nearly put out the fire, finally seeing just how small the flame had become in the time she'd been there. It hadn't been a blazing inferno in any sense of the word before, but now it was barely holding on.

"What else?" Jackal asked, pulling a bag from under his cloak and ripping a piece of paper out of a notebook. He crumpled it and tossed the page into the fire without looking to see what was on it, his eyes never leaving the page as it slowly burned and brought new life to the flames.

"Why aren't you dead?"

"I'll get to that."

"I-I don't know," she whispered. "I never thought I'd see you again. I… I'd thought you were dead, because then I could forget what happened."

Jackal nodded. "I'm right there with you." He looked up when Lucy's breath quickened, a frown pulling at his lips. "If I wanted you dead, you'd already be dead," he growled.

"And you could change your mind at any moment."

"I won't."

"I don't know that," she whimpered.

"I would say to trust me, but we both know you never will, and… That's what's killing me inside."

Lucy's lips parted, her question of just what he was talking about poised on her lips before she froze and really thought about what the demon had said. With her mind reeling, Lucy hardly heard what he said after a pregnant pause.

"I really wish someone would have warned me about this," he growled, his tail twitching out from beneath his cloak and nearly smacking Lucy's thigh on accident. "It was in my book, but I didn't even know."

"H-Huh?"

"And stupid fucking  _Mard Geer_ ," he spat, "Just keeps smiling about it. Cocky shit…"

Lucy shook her head, blinking quickly to try and clear up a modicum of space in her addled brain to determine just what he was rambling about. "I-I thought all of you were dead…"

"No, we're all alive. Well… Keyes is gone. And Silver. Franmalth, too…"

"Oh, so just the psychopathic  _murderers_  are left then," Lucy muttered, clamping her lips shut when she heard the quiet laugh of the demon nearby.  _'Oh my god, I can't believe I said that out loud…'_

"Pretty much," he nodded. "But, now I'm stuck, and no one wants to help me figure out how to make this… problem… go away."

"And that's why you want  _me_  here? Because you want my help?"

Jackal nodded again, more slowly than before. His gaze was distant, and he clenched his hands again before reaching for another page from the notebook in his bag.

Lucy watched curiously as he tossed another piece of paper into the fire, barely catching a glimpse of some sort of markings on it before it was burned completely. "What makes you think I'd help you?" she asked, closing her eyes and resting her forehead on her knees. "After what you did, why would I want anything to do with you?"

"You wouldn't. And I know you don't want to help me. I'm surprised you're still here, to be honest."

"Me, too…"

Jackal smirked a little at that, quietly thumbing the notebook he'd been keeping mostly hidden. "I don't expect anything from you, but… I guess I just figured it was worth a shot. If you say no, then… That's that. I can't really hold it against you."

"That's kinda your thing though," she shot back bitterly. "Holding grudges and then making people pay for it tenfold."

Lucy would be lying if she said that she didn't see the way Jackal flinched. Still, he'd hurt her far worse than a snide comment, and even though she knew it was stupid and reckless and that he'd most likely make her head explode for it, she couldn't stop the words from coming out of her mouth.

"You use innocent people to get what you want. Torturing them, playing mind games… You tear out people's hearts and mock them for their pain. Lives don't mean anything to you, because humans are beneath you."

"I know…"

"And you expect me, someone you tortured, someone you put through hell… Someone whose soul you  _crushed_  to just… help you. Why? Because no one else will?"

Jackal looked down at the bright pink Fairy Tail emblem sitting proudly on her hand. He'd mocked her for it before, he remembered. He remembered everything he'd said to the blonde. From when they'd first met to when he forced her to choose between that old man and the pregnant woman… To the day she'd taken him down. All of it.

He'd heard her screams for her spirit to come back ever since that day, and there hadn't been anything he could do to get her out of his head. At first, he'd assumed that it was because he wanted to pay her back for what she'd done. Because, the little blonde had beaten him, and he hated it.

"Y'know," she spat, "Everyone always called me 'The Light of Fairy Tail'... I was forgiving to a fault. I cared about everyone I met. And then I met you…"

"So I've heard…"

"But it's different now," she continued. "I can't just forgive and forget, because-"

"I know that," he interjected. "I  _know_  you won't help me…"

"Then why… Why would you have me come all the way out here?" She looked away and swiped away the tears welling on her lashes as he pulled another piece of paper out and threw it in the fire. "Just wanted to rub it in that I didn't really kill you?"

"Because…" Jackal paused and looked down to his bag again, his fingers trembling slightly while he finally pulled the notebook out and rested it on his lap. The old leather binding was soft under his fingers, and he could smell the years of memories he had with this one book in particular. It wasn't  _his_  book, not the one he was summoned from. But it was one he'd gotten a long time ago for some reason he hadn't been able to name. And now, more than half of the pages were filled. "If… If you don't, then I'll really die."

"Good."

Jackal nibbled his lip again, his hands tightening around the notebook. She had every right to hate him, and every right to wish him nothing but pain and death. He hadn't expected that admission to hurt him though. It was something he just wasn't accustomed to, and the sudden burning in his chest had him whimpering before he could stop it.

Lucy's eyes widened and her brow raised in surprise while she looked at him again. "What the hell was that?"

Jackal shook his head, refusing to meet her gaze. "Nothing," he whispered. "This was a stupid idea. You can just go…"

"Wh-What?" she asked incredulously. After all of that, he was telling her to leave? Sure, she felt a little better having been able to tell the demon off - and yes, she was more than surprised that he hadn't made her blow up yet - but that was all? He asked for help, and she refused (sort of), and he was done?

"Go," he said quietly. "You don't have to stay. I mean, unless you wanna just sit here and watch me die. I guess that's alright…"

Her eyes narrowed then and she slowly uncurled herself, crossing her legs in front of her while turning slightly to face him. She'd never imagined that she would hear the demon sounding quite like that, so defeated and, dare she say it… so sad. Still, she had to force herself to remember what he'd done in the past, and reasoned that he was just manipulating her, trying to get her to lower her guard. Being captured repeatedly - much to her chagrin - had at least taught her to be a little more wary of her captor.

Jackal sighed and opened the notebook, his fingers brushing lightly over the lines drawn on the page, the shadows and highlights. "I guess, technically, you already did help me. Just, not the way I was hoping…" He smiled sadly then, one corner of his mouth barely twitching.

Lucy fought tooth and nail to keep her curiosity held back as he flipped the page and gently touched whatever was sitting on it. She didn't want to know what sort of sick thing he was looking at. Or why he was just sitting there and staring at page after page as though he was trying to memorize them.

She would have been able to keep herself quiet, maybe just left entirely, if Jackal hadn't come to a page and pulled out a pencil. He ignored her entirely, and just started drawing right then and there. The pencil flew across the page faster than even Reedus had done while he'd sketched anything and everything at the guild. She just had no idea what the demon would be drawing right then, and she didn't know if she really wanted to.

"If you're gonna stay," Jackal whispered after clearing his throat. "Could you do something?"

"That depends," she answered hesitantly. "I might be leaving anyway."

"That's fine." He glanced at the Celestial mage, then set his pencil down. "Could you smile?"

"... What?"

"Smile," he repeated, looking down at the notebook with a frown. "Or laugh. Or… Anything, really. I don't really know what you look like when you're smiling…"

Lucy's eyes narrowed dangerously and she leaned forward just enough to see what he was drawing, her suspicions only confirmed when she saw a woman's figure had been drawn with a small bikini top, a whip in her hand and a shattered key in the other, her hair in high pigtails and the face blank. "What is this?" she hissed.

"You."

"Do you have  _any_  idea how creepy that is?"

Jackal shook his head, glancing at the blonde again and memorizing the fire in her eyes and the way her lip curled in disgust. With a small smirk, he started working on the picture again, filling in the face with the exact expression on Lucy's face in that moment. He'd never seen her look like this before. "Not a smile, but that'll work too… Wishful thinking…"

Lucy's anger swelled until she was seeing red, then the fire burning in her stomach was doused with cold water when he was done after another few minutes. The picture was beautiful, and the way he'd somehow captured her in a way that made it so lifelike took her breath away. She could almost feel Aquarius' power thrumming in the image, and the look on her face was like nothing she'd ever seen before. Surely, she didn't make that face. It was scary as hell, easily reminding her of the glare Erza directed at people who dared to besmirch her cake's and Lucy's honor.

Jackal sighed and tore the page from the notebook, then crumpled it and tossed it into the fire before Lucy could react.

"Wh-What…" Lucy gasped in horror. "Why… Why would you do that?"

He shrugged and smoothed his fingers over the blank page before him. "I can't get your face right. Not the way I want it to be…"

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, shifting back slightly to put some more distance between them.

He looked at her again, then sighed and shook his head. After a moment, he dropped the now-closed notebook on the ground in the space between them. "See for yourself." He already knew that she wouldn't want to take it from him directly, since the blonde was fully aware of the fact that he needed to only touch something to make it explode. Hell, she might not even be willing to touch the book simply because he had.

Lucy reached forward, eyeing the blond demon for a moment before pulling the book into her hands and sitting back down. After she took in the delicate binding and ancient leather, she opened it and her jaw dropped in shock.

Image after image, as she flipped through the pages, were drawn of her. All in different positions, with only three different outfits in varying degrees of coverage as they were slowly destroyed. In every single one, she looked angry or sad. Some had her crying. Some were of her with a faceless mermaid holding her. Another of her hair flying up into the air and pure agony etched onto her face as tendrils of what she knew to be magic spread from her body where she knelt on the ground. Surrounded by a sphere of water, with pure hatred in her eyes.

"I can't stop seeing it," he whispered while rolling the pencil between his fingers. "We all went back into our books to recuperate, because you guys never really killed us… And the whole time… all this time… I just keep seeing you... Hearing you."

"You're obsessed with me?" she whispered shakily. "Uh…"

He shook his head. "Turns out, being made the way we were… Someone out there in the universe decided there was an imbalance in power… We weren't supposed to exist. Zeref only made us to try and kill him, but we can't. We're just failed experiments…"

Lucy's head shot up when she heard the small catch in his voice, one she'd know anywhere, regardless of who it was. "... Jackal?"

"And my stupid book… It's in there… His notes, how to summon me… Everything. But, Mard said that the end of it was blank for all of us when Zeref made us. It's… It's not now… And I finally get why I went after  _you_  while we were trying to activate Face."

Her blood turned to ice in her veins when he looked at her again, sheer terror streaking through her suddenly still body when she saw the fury lurking in their golden depths.

"I'm not supposed to exist," he growled. "But I do, and… Now that Zeref has written us off…"

Her brow furrowed when his face fell.

"I-I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore," he whimpered. His tail twitched in agitation beneath his cloak and he huffed when his pencil broke from the sudden crushing grip in his hand. "And when we came out and realized that Face failing meant that we couldn't kill Zeref, and that he didn't want anything to do with us now, we started looking for something else to fill our time. And I found what I was looking for in my book, then told Mard about it… And… I hate it."

"You mean, you were trying to destroy magic so you could kill Zeref?" she whispered in shock.

Jackal nodded.

"So, what was in your book?"

He looked deeply into her eyes then. "You are. Your name, little things about you, your magic. I thought it was there so I could kill you, and I was more than ready to do that, but then… Every time I went to sleep, I'd hear you crying. Or screaming… O-Or I'd see myself hurting you."

"And you started drawing it because…?"

"Because every time I saw something, it wasn't right. I'd draw and draw and… It's wrong… I don't want to see this..." He paused and pointed at the page she was looking at, where she was openly sobbing while holding a broken key in the air. "Every memory I have is wrong. It looks wrong, and it…" A low growl rumbled in his chest. "It  _feels_ wrong. And I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to  _do_!"

Lucy scrambled backwards as Jackal's voice boomed and a section of the wall behind him exploded, a shrill screech of terror escaping her as she cowered on the ground. Every nightmare she had returned all at once as she clutched at her hair, her eyes screwed shut and her body quivering.

Jackal rubbed a weary hand over his face then looked at Lucy, hearing how her breath quickened again and the only sounds she made were small, scared whimpers. "Hey…"

Lucy flinched and curled in on herself more. "St-Stop…"

He frowned and removed his cloak as he stood. "I should go," he whispered. He paused once he was standing next to the blonde lump on the ground, then draped his cloak over her with a heavy sigh. "I know it doesn't mean much, but I'm sorry for all of it. I just… I wanted to see you smile, just once. I don't deserve that, though, so I understand."

The blonde demon took a step, then paused, looking back to the woman on the ground who had started openly sobbing.

"I never meant to make you cry again, Lucy… You're better off without me, anyway."

* * *

Some time later, Lucy's tears finally subsided and she turned her head to look at the dying fire and barely glowing embers lighting the alcove she and Jackal had been in. She could just barely see the notebook that held Jackal's artwork, and unconsciously took in the odd, earthy scent of the cloak wrapped around her shoulders.

After a moment, the blonde found herself moving before she realized what she was doing. With shaking hands, she tenderly touched the page that held a picture of her and Aquarius, sniffling quietly.

"A-Aquarius," she whimpered. Her free hand grasped the broken key as she took in every detail he'd captured. It was focused on her, just her, and it seemed the mermaid was there only in passing, just another part of the background.

She lifted her head and looked around the alcove, sniffling again and wiping her face clean with her sleeve. And then she saw something she'd missed before. The bag that he'd pulled the notebook from was sitting in the same place it had been before, where Jackal had been seated. She hoped he wasn't coming back, and she knew that she really should just count her lucky stars that he hadn't decided to outright kill her, but she was curious as to what else a demon would have in a bag.

A sudden sense of urgency overcame her, and Lucy scrambled across the ground to throw the flap open and peer inside. Pencils, erasers, scraps of paper, and other bits and pieces that she could tell he used for the drawing she'd seen. A small, gold, satin pouch with a grey drawstring that, once she pulled it from the bag, she realized had something metallic inside. Once that was set off to the side, she saw the last item in the bag: a large, leather-bound tome with crinkled pages, yellowed from age, and singed edges. Two words were embossed into the cover, ones that had the blonde's breath stuttering...

_Etherious Jackal_

His own Book of Zeref, the place he had returned to after she'd failed to kill him. She already knew that destroying his book would mean that he would be dead. It stood to reason that, because his book hadn't been destroyed, Jackal was able to just return to it and be summoned again. So, she had the means to the demon's destruction in her hands. Right there.

She could kill him, and he would never be able to hurt anyone again.

Her eyes strayed to the smoldering fire, then to the notebook whose pages had been used for kindling. Pictures of her, she realized, were being used to keep him warm. His obsession with her.

"I can kill him. I-I can… end it all, and get revenge for Aquarius…"

She could, and she wanted to, but then she looked down again and let her fingers traverse the lettering. It was stupid, risky, and she knew that she needed to just get it over with, but she couldn't help herself.

Lucy opened the book, frowning when a page fell out from just under the front cover. She picked it up and unfolded it, then felt her jaw slowly dropping open as she read the words on the page.

_Lucy,_

_I doubt you'll ever read this, but if you do then I hope you'll keep reading until the end. I don't deserve your time, and I don't expect anything from the letter I just sent to you, but this is more of a just in case kind of thing._

_Just in case you decide to come._

_Just in case I can't convince you to help me._

_I don't blame you for that, since I hurt you before. You might be forgiving, like my book says, but there are some things that are unforgivable. I think it's just in there to torment me though, because it's got me thinking that there's something more to why we met, and why I can't get you out of my head. Mard won't tell me, even though he seems to have figured it out. I told him what I thought it meant, and he just smiled at me. I hate it when he does that._

_Anyway, if you're reading this, then it means I couldn't convince you to help me with this problem I've got. And I bet I was too much of a pussy to even say it, because when I think of asking you to help and telling you what I need from you, I lock up. It's easier to write it though. I think. Or to draw it._

_I hope you liked the drawings. Maybe they're creepy, since I tried to kill you and now it probably looks like I'm some overly obsessed psychopath that's waiting for his victim to be… Nevermind, that's not what I was doing._

_I can't get them right though, and I figured out what's missing._

_Your smile._

_Your happiness._

_I found this picture in a magazine a month ago, and I saw you in the Grand Magic Games smiling up a storm. But it wasn't enough for me to draw it and get it to look right. Because I can't remember seeing you do that. Ever. And I know why, but it hurts to know that so many people have seen it and I never will. But, I brought that on myself, really._

_Damn, I'm just rambling here. I thought I'd be able to write this out, but I can't get the words to come. They're right there in my head, but the pen won't put them on the stupid paper._

_Regardless, this book is yours now. You can do whatever you want with it. It says you're pretty smart, so you probably already know that destroying this will kill me for good. If that's what you want, then great. You'll put me out of my misery. I don't have a purpose anymore, and without you…_

Lucy squinted as she tried to make out the different phrases that had been crossed out repeatedly.

~~_I'm so lost now._ ~~

~~_I'm empty._ ~~

~~_I don't want to be alone._ ~~

~~_I'm not whole._ ~~

Her eyes widened when she realized that he never finished the letter, but she noticed that the writing was identical to the one she'd gotten two days before, the one that asked her to come here. She never would have pictured Jackal to have such beautiful writing, but he was just one surprise after another, it seemed.

The written words rattled around in her head as she flipped through the pages of the demon's book, quickly taking in the dog-eared corners that marked key sections - how to summon him, how he was created, how to destroy him, his purpose. And there, at the very end, filling the last few pages, was what he'd told her about. Information on herself that was written in a hand entirely different from Zeref's - the writing in the rest of the book - and different from Jackal's. And a quickly scrawled note on the very last page, an afterthought of sorts.

_The key to Etherious completion, when left without a goal, is in the hands of their light. Find the light, and darkness will never prevail._

"'Hands of their light'?" she whispered, her brow furrowing. "'Find the light'… What does that even mean?"

She closed the book and sat back on her heels, frowning as she stared at nothing in particular.

" _I would say to trust me, but we both know you never will, and… That's what's killing me inside."_

" _But, now I'm stuck, and no one wants to help me figure out how to make this… problem… go away."_

" _I don't expect anything from you, but… I guess I just figured it was worth a shot. If you say no, then… That's that. I can't really hold it against you."_

" _I guess, technically, you already did help me. Just, not the way I was hoping…"_

" _Turns out, being made the way we were… Someone out there in the universe decided there was an imbalance in power… We weren't supposed to exist. Zeref only made us to try and kill him, but we can't. We're just failed experiments…"_

" _Mard said that the end of it was blank for all of us when Zeref made us. It's… It's not now… And I finally get why I went after you while we were trying to activate Face."_

" _I'm not supposed to exist," he growled. "But I do, and… Now that Zeref has written us off…"_

" _I-I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore... And when we came out and realized that Face failing meant that we couldn't kill Zeref, and that he didn't want anything to do with us now, we started looking for something else to fill our time. And I found what I was looking for in my book, then told Mard about it… And… I hate it."_

" _Every time I went to sleep, I'd hear you crying. Or screaming… O-Or I'd see myself hurting you."_

" _Because every time I saw something, it wasn't right. I'd draw and draw and… It's wrong… I don't want to see this... Every memory I have is wrong. It looks wrong, and it… It feels wrong. And I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do!"_

Lucy's eyes burned with tears as everything Jackal had told her before came rearing back to life. Not from when they'd been enemies, but from when he'd needed her help. He'd said it all, in the best way he could, and she hadn't wanted to hear him, or to understand. She'd been too scared of being manipulated and hurt.

" _I know it doesn't mean much, but I'm sorry for all of it. I just… I wanted to see you smile, just once. I don't deserve that, though, so I understand."_

She could hear it so clearly then, when at the time she'd been crying and trying to get his wicked laugh out of her head. She hadn't realized that he'd said anything as he'd left her alone in the decimated Cube, but now that she remembered his voice filling the air just above her, how it had sounded when he finally said her name, Lucy couldn't forget it.

" _I never meant to make you cry again, Lucy… You're better off without me, anyway."_

Something within her clicked into place, almost as though a lock had turned and revealed a wellspring of emotion. Longing, loneliness, desperation, fear, joy… hope. They were all emotions she was familiar with, but now there seemed to be something, or someone, missing. They called her the Light of Fairy Tail, and now she knew just why she'd never really fought the nickname.

She couldn't explain it, but her hands moved to the pages that were marked for his summoning. The words passed quickly through her lips on nothing more than a breath, and she dropped the book to the ground when it started to glow a bright red.

The fire next to her flared to life, roaring wildly before it exploded, and Lucy curled up on the ground, covering her head with her arms and shielding her body as much as possible with the demon's cloak that was still draped over her shoulders. She coughed as the smoke cleared, slowly sitting up and trying to wave the grey cloud away so she could see what had happened.

A pair of glowing golden eyes peered curiously at the blonde Celestial mage, and once she saw the feral glint of sharpened teeth and that familiar silhouette, Lucy picked up the demon's book from just in front of her and clutched it tightly to her chest.

"You… summoned me?" Jackal whispered, taking a slow step forward before he forced himself to stop. "Why?"

"Because you're looking for a light," Lucy said, her voice quivering while she squinted to see him just a little better. His eyes widened and she saw the way his tail flicked nervously from one side to the other.

As the smoke cleared a little more, and Jackal was finally able to really see the blonde kneeling on the ground, it felt as though the world had suddenly shifted out from under his feet. His cloak was still on her, dwarfing her slender frame in a swath of charcoal grey fabric. His book was pressed against her breasts, her arms wrapping it in a tender embrace. His arrival had caused a good bit of debris and dust to scatter, and the smudges of dirt and ash on her cheeks and in her hair only made her seem to glow. Or maybe she really was glowing.

He had to believe that was the case, or maybe he was just dreaming already. But then, she lifted her hand, silently beckoning him to come closer. His feet moved of their own accord, pulling him forward without even a thought. "But…"

Lucy watched, nibbling her lip nervously as Jackal closed the distance between them and knelt just in front of her with their knees nearly touching. When he shifted slightly, she could feel the golden fur on his legs tickling the fabric of her jeans. "You told me," she whispered after staring into his wide eyes for several moments. "You told me everything, but I didn't want to hear it."

"But, I… You called me back…"

"I did," she nodded. "And I read what I needed to. I can feel it now."

His brows knitted together in confusion as her hand moved in slow motion to cover his, not an ounce of fear showing in the mocha depths of her soulful eyes. "You're not scared of me?"

"If you wanted me dead, I would be," she said, a small hint of humor in her voice. "But, you don't want that… Do you?"

He shook his head then, looking down as Lucy laced their fingers together and lifted their joined hands to fill the space between them. "No…"

"You once told me, that when you see someone crying, you just want to make them cry harder."

"Not anymore."

"Then what is it that you want, Jackal?"

"I don't know anymore…"

Lucy placed the demon's book on the ground at her side, then reached up with her free hand and brushed his hair away from his face, allowing her to see both of his eyes when he jolted and stared at her in shock.

"You're really not afraid to touch me now…"

"There's no point in being afraid. If you decide to do it, then so be it. I won't be able to stop you. I never could before…"

Her thumb lightly brushed across his cheek, and all the demon could feel was warmth cascading down his body. His eyes closed and his previously lax grip on her hand tightened marginally, just enough that he was really holding it. Lilac and lavender fluttered around him, and he drew in a deep breath as it melded with his own scent. He knew that had to be Lucy, but he couldn't figure out why he hadn't picked it up before.

"You said… you just wanted to see me smile," she whispered, feeling him nod against the palm of her hand. "Why?"

"I just feel it… I don't understand it, but-"

"I think I do," she said softly. "I'm the light, and for you to be complete, you need me."

"I don't want to need anyone. That's why I wanted to get rid of this…"

"Do you want me to kill you?"

"I…"

She could practically feel his brain working overtime as she watched his nose scrunch in thought. It was a little surprising that his eyes had stayed closed for as long as they did, but it gave Lucy the chance to really look at him. And he seemed to have no issue whatsoever with it when she started tracing each of his facial features. She bit her lips when she touched the tip of one ear and it twitched. When she did it a second time, his head jerked to one side, but he didn't seem to realize he'd done it.

The kicker though, was his tail. Nevermind the fact that Jackal had apparently kept with his last trend of wearing only a scarf, his pants, and his gloves; she was simply ignoring his muscular form in favor of looking at the puffy tail that shifted occasionally on the ground.

"If you don't want me to kill you," she said, "Then why did you need my help?"

"I don't know," he sighed, his ears flattening when she touched them again.

"You can't say it, can you?" Lucy rolled her eyes when he shook his head. Maybe it was ridiculous of her, and maybe it was time she got her head checked to see if one too many bumps on the noggin from brawls in the guild had brought her to the point of insanity, but as each word left her mouth, she could feel the truth in what she was saying. "You were made, and threw everything out of balance. Zeref had a purpose for you, and you failed it, so now you have nothing."

"I know…"

"But that's where you're wrong." She watched his brow furrow slightly, then sifted her fingers through his hair to keep his bangs away from his face. "You do have something, and you've had it for nearly thirty years now."

"What?"

"You mean  _whom_ ," she whispered, lightly squeezing his hand.

Jackal's eyes slid open again, then his whole world froze when he saw the soft smile on Lucy's face. How she seemed to light up all the more from the small blush dusting her cheeks.

"I was made to be with you, Jackal," Lucy said. "To balance out the power you have, and make sure the darkness in you never takes over now that you can't get rid of Zeref."

Whoever was out there in the universe, he was going to have some serious ass-kissing to do. This was what he'd thought everything in the book meant, and the knowing - and downright creepy - smile Mard kept giving him had only reinforced that. But, with how things had gone before, when he'd been trying to talk to Lucy and get the words to just shoot out, he'd been left reconsidering everything. Maybe it hadn't been that he needed her, or that she was the one made to be his good half. Before she'd summoned him back to this spot, he'd thought it was just wishful thinking.

"I never believed in fate and all that before," Lucy said. "But I know this is the truth. I can feel it in my soul, and I never realized that-"

"... Wow…"

Lucy blinked, then tilted her head to one side. "Wow, what?"

"You… just... wow…" He looked from her face, where he'd been tempted to keep his gaze when he noticed her blush deepening and how she smiled a little more shyly, then down to their clasped hands. Over to where she was still touching his face. Finally, he lifted his free hand and gently rested it against her cheek.

He felt her shiver, watching her eyes slide shut in a long blink, and just as he was about to pull his hand away - thinking that maybe she didn't want him to touch her because of his curse - the blonde proved him wrong and only smiled more widely as she looked into his eyes again.

"What about me is 'wow'?" She shuddered when a dark grin stretched across his lips, but before she could figure out whether or not it was from fear, his lips were on hers, moving more gently than she would have imagined Jackal was capable of. He pulled her closer, eliciting a quiet moan when she crashed into his chest as his teeth nipped at her lips.

It was official, she'd lost her mind. If anyone had told her that she would be willingly kissing a demon - one whose tail had wrapped around her body and was lightly trailing up and down her spine - she would have Lucy Kicked them to the other side of the world.

"Your smile..."

Lucy would have been more than appalled if someone had said she was going to pull said demon down to the ground on top of her, or that a sultry laugh from her would break their kiss for only a moment while he groaned in surprise, before he attacked her lips more insistently.

"... Your heart..."

She wouldn't have believed any of them, especially not the ones that may have said she would actually giggle when Jackal used his curse to decimate her clothing without injuring her. Or that, between one kiss and the next, she was moaning his name as he slowly filled her and their hips ground together.

"... O-Oh, Lucy..."

And, even though she would have checked herself into a mental institution for thinking anything like that only the day before, as she writhed beneath the growling demon, with her fingers sinking into his hair to pull him ever-closer, and his tail tenderly stroking her thighs, Lucy could only feel that it was  _exactly_ where she was meant to be.

She wouldn't find out until later that the small pouch she'd set aside in his bag held each remnant of Aquarius' key, that he'd scoured the ground for two days to find each and every piece of the shattered key, so he could give them back to her. And even though she would be in tears when he used an extremely controlled version of his curse to reforge the key into its original shape, Lucy would cherish the day that she'd reunited with her demon. Because even with how horribly they'd met, the rest of her life would be filled with laughter and a love that she'd never imagined possible.

 


	2. Barter

 

"I'll give you anything you want, just please let me do it?" Lucy pouted, her eyes wide as she held a strange brush between her clasped hands.

"No, and that's final," Jackal huffed. He refused to be degraded so tirelessly, by his own girlfriend nonetheless.

"Just this once! Tell me what you want, anything!" After a moment, when she saw the dark, malevolent grin on his face, she shouted, "Within reason!"

"Are you trying to…  _trade_  with me?" he growled. The weak smile she gave him as he crawled forward across her too-small pink couch to pin her against the arm of it was more than enough for him to let her do what she was asking. But he wasn't going to tell her that. No, she needed to suffer just a little bit. "You do know that trading with a demon is risky business..."

"I-I am," Lucy nodded. "And I do. You let me brush  _all_  of your fur, and I'll… umm…"

"Wear a maid's costume to the guild."

"No."

"Good answer," he chuckled. One hand lightly toyed with the end of one of her pigtails. "I'm pretty greedy. No one should get to see you like that but me."

"And I don't feel like having, the day turning into Lucy Fondle-Fest. Or having you destroy the entire town when someone just  _breathes_  in my general direction."

"I thought you loved my fondling," he smirked.

"You mean all those  _puppy cuddles_?" she snickered.

Jackal growled again and nipped at her lips playfully. Really, he had no problem with Lucy brushing his fur. It felt amazing, it made the sweet little minx that was his girlfriend happy, and he didn't have to worry about being teased over the fact that, yes, it was a dog brush he used for the hair on his head as well as the fur on his legs. "Oh, I'll give you 'puppy cuddles'," he whispered, his lips grazing her cheek while they meandered over to her ear. He grinned when her hands stole up his chest to loop around his neck. "But back to this trade. Why don't you… Blow something up?"

Lucy blinked and drew back with a frown. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah," the demon laughed. "If I let you brush my fur, then you have to blow something up."

"... Why?"

He shrugged, but there was a deviously excited twinkle in his eyes. "Because I never get to see you destroy anything. And do you have  _any_  idea how sexy it'd be to see you make something explode?"

"Your obsession with explosions is terrifying sometimes," she sighed.

"It's a curse, really," he nodded sagely. When Lucy snorted, he lifted a brow and grinned, watching as she descended into a full fit of giggles over his cheesy pun. "So, what do you say? Make me a happy puppy?"

Lucy's laughter subsided in an instant, her eyes widening and her jaw dropping open in shock. In the two years she and Jackal had been together, he'd never called  _himself_  a puppy. She got away with it simply because she was his girlfriend - she was sure the fact that they were sleeping together made him more amenable to it - and he refused to let anyone hear the nickname in general. But, the fact that he'd done it, and that he was now pouting and wagging his tail only slightly, melted her heart.

"Please?" Jackal whispered.

"But, baby," Lucy sighed. "I can't blow things up like you do… Besides, where would we even go for something like that?"

"We could go to the guild…" The way her grip tightened on his brush had him chuckling. "Or… A mountain. Abandoned warehouse. A tree in the park. It's pretty easy to find something to blow up."

"Well, maybe for you," she grumbled. "And what am I getting out of this?"

"You get to brush my fur."

"But, you like that. And don't deny it because I've watched your leg  _literally_  start shaking from how much you're enjoying it." The way his ears lowered had her smirking in triumph. She could see him mulling it over, and decided to wait until he'd come up with a better deal.

"Fine," Jackal huffed after another several minutes of silence. "You can brush my fur  _if_  you promise to blow something up in the next week - which, I have to see, or it doesn't count - and in return, I'll…" He grimaced at the thought, but still continued. "I'll do something for you…"

"And what might that be?"

"Uh… I'll take you down to the beach and we can do one of those cheesy date things… Like those horrible movies you force me to watch."

Lucy blinked in surprise at that. It was no secret that Jackal hated the idea of going on a traditional date. She actually really liked that about him. Any 'date' he took her on was off-the-wall, strange, and in no way, shape, or form considered a real date by anyone else in the universe.

Like the time he'd whisked her away from her team over his shoulder, took her out into the woods, and tied her to a tree as bait for a whole nest of Vulcans… just so he could kill them. That had been their second date, from what he'd said afterwards. Well, after he'd kissed her senseless and told her that she looked sexy as hell tied up and helpless. She drew the line at him wanting to fuck her because she was covered in viscera.

Or when he had woken her up and dragged her through town, in her skimpy satin nightie, at two in the morning to sit on top of the observatory and play Battleship during a meteor shower for their fourth date. Oddly enough, he'd gotten just as distracted by the meteors as she had. That night, he'd told her that seeing the stars in her eyes made him feel like his heart was going to combust. She'd nearly tackled him off of the observatory while kissing him, and realized after the fact that he'd actually had no clue why he felt that way, regardless of what it had sounded like to her. She'd explained it after they got their clothes back on; although, she never found her underwear that night.

Jackal wasn't overly romantic; at least, not intentionally. He didn't give her flowers or anything like that, but after far too many failed relationships with guys that thought dinner and a movie constituted getting into her pants, Lucy was more than fine with Jackal's own version of romance. It had taken him a good while to understand what these 'human' emotions were that he was experiencing with Lucy, and she loved being able to witness those little epiphanies he had over the whole thing. Especially when he was just so damn confused, and he'd start pouting until she explained it to him.

But, he also knew that she did like going out to dinner, dressing up from time to time. It just wasn't  _his_ cup of tea.

So, the fact that he was offering to suffer so she could have a normal date made her smile all the more. "You… You will?" Lucy whispered.

Jackal refused to admit that seeing Lucy looking at him the way she was, with her eyes wide and crinkled in the corners from how much she was smiling, made him want to wag his tail like a damn dog. Sure, he was part of the canine family, but he downright refused to act like a housepet that was ready to piss on the floor once its owner came home.

Yes, he was a demon, and yes, he'd tried to kill the woman he now loved, but it was something she'd forgiven him for and he did, on occasion, like to make her feel like she  _wasn't_  in a relationship with a demon, but with a normal guy. The thought of taking Lucy out to dinner wasn't that much of a turn-off, it was more of his own inner desire to make the other annoying patrons explode - repeatedly - that made him not take her out. He was trying his damnedest to be on his best behavior, after all.

But, Lucy knew why Jackal didn't take her out to eat, and when she saw the awkward smile he was giving her, complete with naturally sharpened teeth, she just fell in love all over again. It wasn't often, if ever, he looked like this. Only around her, while they were in the comfort of her small apartment that he'd half-moved into.

"Yeah, I will," he whispered back. "Candles and all, if you want."

Her eyes misted with tears and she shook her head while winding her arms more tightly around him. "You're a sweetheart, Jackal."

"Don't start crying," he huffed, moving so he was straddling her hips and pulling her further into his arms. "It's just a stupid date, so you'll blow something up, so you can brush my fur."

"And it's the sweetest thing ever!"

"I really don't understand you humans sometimes…"

"You don't have to," she laughed, sniffling quietly. "But, yes. I can agree to those terms. I-I'll even blow up  _two_  things!"

"Yeah?" he asked, forcing himself not to pull back to grin at her. He was ignoring the fact that his tail really did wag then.

"Yeah, dork."

He chuckled and lightly nuzzled her cheek, then slid down to gently nip at the pale skin stretching over her throat. "I love you…"

"Love you, too," she sighed. "Now, get those pants off so I can brush you. You've been shedding all over the apartment all week."

"... You suck, Lucy."

She gave him a cheeky grin when he slowly sat back. "Yes, and you love every second of it." Golden eyes narrowed and locked onto hers. "And yes, while your pants are off, you'll get a blowjob."

"That doesn't count as an explosion. Even if it  _does_  have 'blow' in the name."

Lucy shrugged and tapped his thigh with the dog brush. "I never said it did, sexy puppy. Now, pants begone!"

Jackal rolled his eyes and stood, then made his way to the bedroom where Lucy had already set up a towel to catch any stray fur. By the time the blonde had closed the door behind her, his pants were off and he was watching her with a smug grin as she quite literally dropped the brush to the floor.

"O-Okay," Lucy said absently. "Blowjob first..."

_'_ _Gets her every time…'_


	3. Sharp

 

Lucy smiled down at the slumbering demon in her bed, barely stifling a giggle when his nose twitched and he quietly snuffled the pillow she'd been using in his sleep. Her body ached from the night before, but a few marks from his teeth, bruising on her hips from his fingers, and the soreness between her legs were well worth it. She'd never felt so satisfied in all her life with any man, with the night she'd lost her virginity being the closest she'd ever gotten (even though she was  _never_  doing that again), and she knew after the first time she'd slept with Jackal that it had apparently been a demon she'd needed all along.

Still, while she wanted nothing more than to stay in bed with her boyfriend of seven months, she'd promised to meet her team at the guild. Besides, Jackal would be leaving to head back to Tartarus - newly reformed and on the light side, thank the stars - as soon as he woke up, and she hated watching him leave. So, all Lucy could do was blow him a silent kiss and make her way out of her apartment, then down to the guild. It was just how they did things every time he stayed over.

Of course, if Lucy had thought about the fact that she'd actually had to put a bandage over the bite he'd left on her shoulder, she might have considered wearing less revealing than a halter top. Granted, part of the reason she'd done it was because she didn't want fabric sitting over the wound, but she would have gladly dealt with some discomfort over the sudden barrage of worried questions from her team when she sat down at the table.

"Lucy, what happened?" Erza asked, pausing in eating her newly delivered cake to stare at the marks on the blonde sitting next to her. Scratches across her neck and shoulders, small bruises on her chest and dipping between her breasts, and one large square of gauze taped over her shoulder.

"Shit, are you alright?" Gray hissed.

Natsu's eyes narrowed. "Did you take a mission without us? Luce…"

"Wow, that's a lot of scratches," Happy muttered with wide eyes as he munched on his fish.

Lucy blinked and looked down at herself with a deep flush of embarrassment. She hadn't thought twice about the marks Jackal left on her in bed, but in hindsight she should have. "Um…" Especially since they'd kept their relationship a secret. "W-Well…"

Erza carefully set down her fork, her gaze hardening when she took in Lucy's appearance and saw the small bit of purpled flesh peeking out from under her shirt, just above the hem of her low-cut jeans. She reached down swiftly and pulled the cloth up, ignoring Lucy's protests, and only felt her anger rising once she saw more bruises. "Who did this to you?!"

"Erza, it's not like th-"

"Fuck, Bunny Girl," Gajeel said, stopping in his tracks as he passed the table and staring in horror at the bruises on her hips. "What did he do to ya?"

Lucy blanched and pulled her shirt from Erza's grip, nearly tearing it in the process while covering herself again. "He didn't do anything!"

"Who?" Gray asked, the air around him misting as the temperature lowered.

"M-My boyfriend!"

"You're dating someone?" Natsu asked. "Since when? I never smelled anyone new on you."

"Yes, and… Stop smelling me!"

The metal of Erza's gauntlets scraped over the tabletop, her fists clenching. "Lucy, if your significant other is abusing you-"

"Erza, chill out," Lucy pleaded. "Seriously, it's not-"

"It certainly looks that way," Erza scowled. "Who is this cretin? I will hold you down and force you to tell me, should you try to protect him."

She really hadn't wanted anyone to find out this way, especially not her team. No, she and Jackal had talked about making their relationship public in another couple of weeks. After he'd been able to actually visit the guild with the other demons and show Fairy Tail that they weren't evil, and that they were all sincere in being one of the good guys. It was why he needed to get back to his own guild that day. Just so he could show up in another two weeks as though he hadn't been to Magnolia recently.

But that was all in the shitter now, all because she'd been an idiot. "It's not that I'm protecting him, it's just… He gets a little carried away in bed, and-"

"He's sullied your maidenhood?!" Erza screeched, drawing the attention of the guild.

Lucy sunk down further into her seat as Gajeel took the spot on her other side, straddling the bench and rolling his eyes at the redhead. "Calm yer shit, Titania," he growled. "Bunny hasn't been a virgin for a long fuckin' time."

"And how would  _you_  know?" Gray scoffed.

"Because I'm the one that took it," he smirked, chuckling when Lucy elbowed him in the stomach. Had he really needed to let the whole guild know that? No, but he also wasn't going to go into any details on the matter. Like the fact that Lucy was exceedingly drunk just after they'd returned from Edolas, that she'd gotten lost and ended up on his doorstep at three in the morning, only to find him three sheets to the wind. Or that he'd been drinking because Lily wasn't living with him yet (the Exceed in question having chosen to stay outdoors to take in the new land he was living in). Or how she'd lamented about how she was going to die a virgin because of how often people were trying to kill her. He also wasn't going to mention that they woke up the next morning, and that  _both_  of them screamed like a couple little bitches at finding the other naked in a bed with them… Or how mortifying it was to see two condoms tied off on the floor as memories of the night they'd spent together surfaced.

No, Gajeel was just going to claim the position of being that one that took her virginity, so Erza couldn't just downright off the one Lucy was fucking now. He wasn't going to mention that she was dating-

"It's Jackal, okay?" Lucy shouted. "I'm dating Jackal, and we had sex last night! Big deal!"

"Jackal?!" the rest of Team Natsu shouted back.

"Luce, seriously?" Natsu roared.

"Lucy, he's a demon!" Gray bellowed.

"This is unacceptable," Erza sneered. "He's clearly manipulating you!"

"No," Lucy sighed, "He's just-"

"Don't worry, I've got his scent," Natsu growled, vaulting from the table. "C'mon!"

Lucy watched in horror as the rest of her team followed the Fire Dragon Slayer out of the guild, then jumped to her feet. She turned to glare at the offending, heavy hand that pulled her to a stop before she could even get moving. "Gajeel, what are you doing?"

With narrowed crimson eyes, he looked at the blonde. "You tell me the truth, Bunny. Yer like a little sister, and I'm not gonna have some cocky little fuck beatin' up on ya."

"He's not beating me up," she huffed.

"And you'd tell me if he was?"

"I would. You know I would."

"Well, that's sure as shit what it looks like, y'know."

"Gajeel, I don't really have time for this!"

He stood and ushered Lucy out of the guild. He was more than willing to run and talk at the same time. As they made their way through town and toward her apartment, he said, "So, what is it then? If he's not hittin' you…"

Lucy blushed but still said, "Jackal's just a little rough in bed. I-I um…"

"You like that shit," Gajeel smirked. "I remember."

"Oh my god… Shut up."

He shrugged as the sound of shattering glass and screaming civilians sounded in the distance. "What? I may be scarred for life from sleepin' with ya-" He chuckled when Lucy punched him in the arm. "But that doesn't mean I forgot. Kinky bitch."

"Fuck you," she scowled. So what if, at some point during that single drunken night, she'd asked Gajeel to chain her to the bed and spank her? While he'd been willing to do that, because he was seriously into bondage in a way that not even Lucy had considered, apparently he'd drawn that line at biting her to the point of drawing blood. Something that Jackal had no problem with, and she didn't even have to ask him to do - or mention that she actually loved it.

"Hey, I'm just lookin' out for ya, Bunny," he sighed. "As long as you're being careful, I'm cool with it."

"Even though it's Jackal?"

And then he grinned down at the unsure blonde. "I've known this whole time, dumbass. Flame Brain might be too stupid to pick it up, but I'm not. If I had a problem with it, I would've said something months ago. I trust you to make the right choices. Yer a big girl."

A relieved smile crossed her face before it faded into a mask of horror. Lucy came to a screeching halt in the street, staring at the spectacle before her. Glass littered the street from a broken window on the second floor of her apartment building - she didn't even need to look to know it was hers - and Jackal was slowly standing up from the ground only to get knocked down again with a flaming fist from Natsu.

He only defended himself, and not once - even though Lucy knew he was more than ready to by the look in his eyes - did he use his curse to just make something blow up. His face was already bloody, and he was beaten all to hell. Cuts from Erza's swords danced over his arms and chest. Some of the fur on his tail was singed, while some on his right leg was frosted over.

"Shit," Gajeel growled.

"Ice Devil's-"

"Gray, no!" Lucy shrieked. She ran forward and tackled the stunned blond demon to the ground just as the Devil Slaying spell sailed through the air, barely getting him down in time to keep him safe.

"Lucy?" Jackal whispered, his visible eye widening at his girlfriend's sudden appearance. He turned his head when he heard a low growl of warning, and frowned at the sight of Gajeel standing between himself and Lucy, and Team Natsu. "What the hell?"

"You've done enough," Gajeel sneered, clenching his fists.

"No way!" Gray shouted. "He's a demon, and he hurt Lucy!"

"I said I was fine!" Lucy spat.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Erza said with a wave of her hand. "You are too close to the situation, and so it falls to us to-"

"To what, Titania?" Gajeel snarled. "Decide who Bunny gets to be with? You gonna lock her ass up next? Why don't  _you_  take a fucking step back and let her choose for herself?"

"If Jackal cared about Luce  _at all_  then he wouldn't hurt her like that!" Natsu roared, his fists flaming. "I mean, look at her!"

Jackal frowned and looked back at Lucy as the other Fairy Tail members started arguing. "What are they talking about?" he whispered. "I'd never hurt you again…"

Lucy sighed and shook her head, carefully brushing his bangs back to see how badly he needed to get patched up. Then again, since Jackal was a demon, he tended to heal pretty quickly. It was mainly a matter of cleaning him up to get the blood out of his eye, and everywhere else. "Don't listen to them. They just overreacted when-"

But Jackal wasn't listening to her. His golden eyes were solely focused on the bandage on her shoulder, and the small spots of blood on the white gauze. Once he saw it, Jackal quickly sat up and tore the bandage back, his blood turning to ice once he saw the barely bleeding punctures deep in her shoulder.

Everyone froze as a loud, high-pitched whimper sounded out from the ground, and all of the Fairy Tail members present watched curiously as Jackal lightly touched the wound left on Lucy's shoulder. His hand drew back as though burned and he whimpered again.

"Jackal?"

He hadn't considered the fact that Lucy was a human while they were having sex. In fact, Jackal couldn't do a whole lot of thinking in general once her clothes started coming off. He was definitely glad that she'd seemed to find how stupid he became around her in just her underwear endearing, because it was embarrassing as hell. But still, even with all of that, he'd never realized how fragile she really was, being human. And with him being a demon, he'd just let his instincts run wild with her.

But he'd promised himself, and he'd promised Lucy when they started talking after he and the other demons had a change of heart… He'd sworn that he wouldn't hurt her again. He wouldn't make her cry, if he could help it, and he wouldn't be happy seeing her bleed like he would have before.

"Jackal," Lucy said, her brow furrowing. "Are you okay?"

His gaze was trained on the sight of her blood, and while it did make his mouth water, it also sickened him. He'd done this to her, and all he could do was think back over the last few months to every time they'd slept together. Any other time, he would have been hard as a rock, but not then. Because he could only see the pain in her eyes when he tackled her to the bed. How she would sometimes cry while they were having sex, or the tears in her eyes afterwards.

This was all his fault. He'd hurt the Celestial mage when he'd promised never to do it again. When he'd really meant what he said.  _'How long have I been hurting her?'_ he wondered. Maybe she was just too scared to say anything, thinking that he was doing it because he wanted her to hurt. Maybe she thought there wasn't anything she could do…  _'She's… Lucy's still scared of me…'_

"... Puppy…"

Jackal drew back as Lucy's hand gently rested on his cheek, finally looking into her honey eyes. "I-I'm sorry… I didn't… I'm sorry…"

Lucy was frozen in place as he pushed away from her and ran down the road, toward the edge of town and away from the train station. Away from her. She couldn't even hope to catch him, so she just didn't try. He'd always been faster than her, and it was pointless to even hope she'd be able to catch up to him.

Instead, she simply continued kneeling on the ground while her heart cracked painfully in her chest and tears burned in her eyes.

At the first quiet sob from the blonde, Natsu, Erza, and Gray rushed forward to console her, only to draw back when a heavy iron club knocked them out of the way. Gajeel knelt next to Lucy, pulling her into his arms and glaring at the other three mages.

"What the hell, Railroad-face?!" Natsu shouted.

"Fuck you. All three of ya!" He looked down at the crying blonde, then down that path that Jackal had taken to get away from her. "Makin' Bunny Girl cry…"

"But, Jackal's the one that-"

"No!" Lucy sniffled. "I-If you had just  _l-listened_  to me… But, no… I don't know what I'm talking about, do I?"

Gajeel shook his head as he looked up at the blonde's broken window. "Get her shit fixed, since I know you three broke it throwing his ass out of her fuckin' apartment. Bunny, you're comin' home with me."

Lucy sniffled again and roughly wiped her eyes as Gajeel carefully stood with her in his arms. She didn't care about a whole lot of anything right then, and she sure as hell didn't want to see her team. At least Gajeel had been willing to hear her out. He'd listened to what she had to say concerning Jackal.

"It's alright, Bunny," he whispered. "He'll come back."

"What if he doesn't…"

"Then it looks like I'm gonna be stocking up on chocolate," he smirked. When she didn't even try to smile, his lips fell into a scowl.  _'Better not have to come to that…'_

* * *

It had been a month since that day, and Jackal had never come back to Magnolia. Lucy had even waited for the day that Tartarus was supposed to come to visit, but she'd been out on a mission, trying to get back as quickly as possible, and had missed it entirely. From what she'd found out later, no one had been by the guild that was worth mentioning.

They hadn't shown up. Jackal hadn't come back.

And that was why, after giving him only a few more weeks to sort himself out and at least try to talk to her, Lucy was fed up. Sure, she'd sulked and cried all over Gajeel's couch for the first twelve days, and then another five days after finding out Jackal hadn't come by, but she was done with that.

She was done being the one that waited around for her own happiness, and she was more than done wishing he would come back around. So, she was going to find her demon and give him a piece of her mind. And then, hopefully, she would be able to get him riled up enough that he would just lay her out on her back for a good hour.

And that was where she stood then. In front of the looming, and downright creepy, stone building that housed the former dark guild, Tartarus. The fact that knocking on the front door - because she couldn't seem to push the stupid thing open or find a handle - only revealed Lamy made it that much creepier.

"Oh, it's you."

Lucy tried to put on her best smile, but she knew she just looked like she was about to shit out a rhinoceros. "I'm here to see Jackal."

Lamy rolled her eyes and started to close the door, then screamed as a brown boot connected with her face and sent her flying backwards down the hall.

Lucy was so fucking done with this. Sure, Jackal had been a little on the stand-offish side when they'd gotten together the first time, but he'd warmed up to her. She hadn't had all that much interaction with the other demons except on a few rare occasions, and had instead just been enjoying her secret time with her boyfriend, but Lamy had always disliked Lucy. And the feeling was more than mutual. Mainly because it was obvious that the weird rabbit-eared demon had a thing for Jackal, and had no issue with fawning over him. Especially when Lucy was around.

As she journeyed down the length of the hall, cursing the building for not having any doors that she could see right then, save the one at the far end that never seemed to get any closer, Lucy only grew more agitated. And her frustration almost ended in disaster when she found herself standing in front of the head honcho of the demons, Mard Geer. With his long black hair and creepy little smile. Lucy was so far beyond pissed that she almost yelled at the demon before her. And then she remembered just what he was capable of. And the fact that the other demons were all still acutely careful not to piss him off.

Instead, Lucy cleared her throat and took a deep breath. Calmly, she said, "I came to see Jackal."

"I know."

"Will you please tell me where he is?"

Mard lifted a brow and smirked. "Find him for yourself." At the heavy sigh from the blonde, he added, "I will not tell you that he hasn't left his room since returning. Nor will I say that it is down that hallway." He paused and vaguely gestured off to his left. "It is most definitely not the third door on the right. I will, however, say that, should you decide to explore anywhere else…"

Lucy's eyes widened and she shuddered at the unfinished threat. Really, he didn't need to say anything more. His skin-crawling smile only widened. "I-I'm good. I'll just… Go search then. Like you suggested. Th-Thanks for not telling me anything." She'd been there before, but Jackal had always been with her so Lucy could only assume that there was some sort of defense on the building that made it impossible to find a hallway without one of the demons' specific permission. She watched Mard Geer nod and clutch the book of E.N.D. a little closer to his chest as he turned to walk down a hallway she hadn't seen before. When he was out of earshot, she whispered, "He would be so perfect for the Demon…"

Mard stopped dead in his tracks. "... What was that?"

Lucy was in the middle of turning toward the hallway he'd indicated before, her back going rigid. Really the errant thought shouldn't have made it out of her in the first place, because Mira and Mard being in any sort of relationship was terrifying. Still though, he clearly had an inner matchmaker that she couldn't help but picture being perfect for Mira's own coupling obsession. Or maybe it was just that he liked manipulation so much. They were really the same thing…

"Of which demon are you speaking?" His deep onyx eyes narrowed as Lucy gulped loudly and met his gaze.

She knew there was no point in lying, but she couldn't help the uneasy laugh that fell through her suddenly dry lips. "Well, more like… three demons in one? Maybe more. I'm a little scared to find out how many she's collected."

"Collected…?"

"Mirajane Strauss," Lucy nodded.

"I see," he whispered. "And where might I find this… demon collector?"

Lucy really couldn't help but giggle quietly at the faintest hint of a blush on the Underworld King's cheeks. Really, that had been the last thing she'd expected to see in her lifetime. "She's a barmaid at Fairy Tail." When his eyes widened slightly, she smirked. "I, um… I won't say that you should visit sometime to… promote interguild relations."

Mard blinked slowly, an amused quirk to his lips.

"And I  _definitely_  won't tell you that she's single," Lucy added, biting her lip to stop from laughing.

"You are quite the enigma," he said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lucy smiled. "I'm just here to see Jackal."

"Yes, you are. I will leave you to finding him." He turned away once more as the blonde did the same, listening to her nearly silent steps down the hall.

Lucy paused in front of the third door on the right, the one that was very easy to tell housed Jackal based on the blackened, smoke-damaged edges. Why he would blow up his bedroom was beyond her, but she could only assume that Mard Geer allowed small concessions like a charred door. As she stood in front of it, she took several deep, soothing breaths to try and decide just what she was going to say. And how she was going to say it. Considering right then, she was torn between crying and punching him in the balls.

Then she couldn't decide whether or not to even knock.

Eventually, she sighed and just opened the stupid thing. Knocking really would be pointless, considering she was sure the other demons didn't do it. They just walked in, something that had been cause for quite a bit of embarrassment for Lucy when she'd been naked, spread eagle, and on the verge of climaxing. Franmalth showing up in the doorway with Jackal's face between her legs still gave her nightmares.

She'd been in Jackal's room on occasion, maybe four or five times in the span of the seven months of their relationship. Every time she went inside, though, it was like she was seeing it for the first time. His odd sense of style - or a lack thereof - took up the entire space. There was hardly any furniture or decorations, and barely any lighting, with the exception of what she would only ever secretly call a king-sized dog bed and an easel. His clothes were in a small closet, there were normally a couple pictures on the wall above his bed of the two of them, and then one corner was overly organized with art supplies. Odd though it was, Lucy loved that Jackal was really into his art.

She'd found the room just as she'd expected, clean and organized because he really couldn't handle clutter, but what she hadn't expected was to find her sweet (sometimes) demon curled up in a ball on his ridiculously comfortable, overly fluffed, way too big for just him alone, dog bed. With his ears flattened against his head and what had to be the most depressing pout she'd ever seen pulling down his canine snout.

Silently, Lucy walked over to stand in front of him, then slowly knelt on the floor and started running her fingers through his hair. "Here's my cutie puppy," she whispered.

"What are you doing here?"

"It's been a month, and you never came back for us to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about. You hate me…"

Lucy frowned at that. "When did I ever say that I hate you?"

"Well, never… but…"

"But nothing," she sighed. "Jackal, you just left without a word. And-"

"I hurt you though," he whimpered. For the past, apparently, month all he could think about was that fact. The broken promise, and just how much of an idiot he was for not realizing sooner that he was hurting her.

"And I  _liked_  it," she huffed. "Baby…"

"What… Huh?"

She grinned and crawled forward onto the bed, rolling him over onto his back and looking deeply into his widened golden eyes. "I never had a problem with what we did."

"But, I promised-"

"I know," she nodded. "You promised not to hurt me again, but there's a difference between what you did when we met, and what you do to me in bed."

"How?" he frowned. He couldn't see any difference at all. "I've made you bleed and cry, and I know you're too sore the next day because I've seen you taking pain pills sometimes…"

"Did you ever consider the fact that I'm a masochist?" Lucy giggled, throwing her leg over his hips and lightly tracing the contours of his bare torso.

"You're… No way."

"Yes way," she laughed. "Because if I wasn't, then the things you do to me…"

Jackal forced his hands to stay on the plush bedding as Lucy's eyes closed in a long blink and she shivered excitedly. He had to try and keep himself under control, because that was what had caused all of this to begin with.

"... The way you bite and scratch and bruise me…" She nibbled her lip while looking down at him again, a devilish grin on her face when his eyes grew wider. "No man has ever gotten to me like you do, Jackal."

His breath hitched as she leaned down to whisper in his ear. Just her scent was enough to drive him crazy. He'd missed it in the month he'd been holed up in his room. He'd missed everything about Lucy, and had wanted nothing more than to go to her and make things right, but he'd been so convinced that she hated him. And she had every right to.

"My favorite thing though…" Lucy's smile widened as his hands carefully glided over her thighs, up to rest on her hips. "Is when you hold me down and bite me, and make me scream like a whore."

The blond demon couldn't move fast enough, in his opinion, as he quickly upended the Celestial mage. Then pounced. His lips were on hers, a feral growl rumbling through his body as he tore her clothing off. The fact that Lucy wore miniskirts and barely there tops was always something he'd loved. Especially because it made it so much easier to get her naked. Hearing her talk like that wasn't something new to him, because the Celestial mage had quite the mouth on her when she was horny, but Lucy knew that her words could unravel him in seconds. And that was usually how she got him to the point he was at right then.

In that moment, he didn't care that she would most likely yell at him for ruining her bra and panties. Or that he'd just ripped off his favorite pair of pants. His low groan was muffled by Lucy's suddenly bloody lips, and while he would have pulled back in concern to make sure she was okay, that his sharpened teeth hadn't hurt her too badly, he couldn't find it in himself to care once the coppery tang skittered over his taste buds. And most especially not when Lucy quickly reached between their already undulating bodies to wrap her hand around his hardening arousal.

Lucy stroked him slowly, her grip tightening each time she reached the base. She could taste her blood on his tongue as it wound around her own, but she didn't care. What she cared about most was the way his hands felt as they roughly kneaded her flesh, how his fingers heated up only slightly while his hips jerked into her grasp.

He lifted his head to look down into her eyes as the blonde lined him up at her entrance, breathless as he slowly filled her. No matter how rough and wild he got, this was always a time that he would take it slow. It didn't matter that she liked pain - which, later he would wonder why that had never even occurred to him in the first place - because watching as her eyes darkened and feeling her slender body tremble with every solid inch that was pushed into her quivering sex, was more than worth it.

When he started to move, however, was when Jackal officially lost control. Just that one stroke was all it took for the demon's instincts to kick in, and Lucy was left crying out in pained pleasure as he slammed back into her core.

Jackal's fingers dug into the bed as Lucy's nails raked down his back, his teeth bared and a low growl rumbling in his chest. Looking down into her eyes, he could see the one expression he loved being gifted with. Carnal desire. A ferocity he never would have been able to picture on her face. Her leg hitched higher on his hip. How she suddenly gasped as he held her hips in place and started moving more frantically than before, had him aching to hear her screaming his name.

"J-Jackal…" Lucy panted as he descended on her lips again, his sweat-slicked chest rubbing against her own as he spread her legs wider. She would have bruises on her thighs from his hands, but she didn't care. It felt too amazing to think of anything but what he was doing to her.

"Tell me again," he snarled, nipping the line of her jaw before roughly suckling on a patch of her pale throat. "Tell me you like it."

Lucy cried out as his sharpened teeth scored her flesh, her legs tightening their hold on his pistoning hips. When he moved further down and did it again, her body shuddered at the overwhelming swirl of pain and pleasure. What was up and what was down was lost on her.

"Tell me!"

"I-I love it, Jackal," she moaned. "Bite me more."

His tongue lapped at the few drops of blood dotting her shoulder and he quickly withdrew to kneel over her. The sudden whine from the blonde beneath him had a dark grin stretching over his face.

Lucy's eyes widened at the feral, nearly unseeing gleam in his eyes. She'd never seen him quite like this, not since they'd been enemies. She gasped as he roughly grabbed her wrist and tossed her to the other side of the bed, rolling her in the process so she was left lying on her stomach.

"You sure about that?" he growled, licking his lips as she shivered and the sudden scent of fear mixed with her arousal that hung thick in the air.

Lucy whimpered and found her sense of self-preservation peaking as she unconsciously tried to move away from the demon. She screamed as he pounced on her, flailing and trying to push him away until his jaw locked on the back of her neck. She wasn't sure just what it was that had her trembling, but what she did know was that she really didn't want him to stop. She wanted more of the dark promises glimmering in his eyes, rumbling in his chest. She barely shifted beneath him, then froze when he growled and tightened his grip on her neck for only a moment. A show of her needing to submit to him. "J-Jackal?"

His knees spread her legs and his hands pushed under her body, one to cup her breast and the other to lift her hips just enough for him to drive himself into her. When she screamed at the sudden intrusion, he moaned and roughly pinched her nipple.

"Oh god… Jackal… Wait!" She cried out when he bit her neck harder, his hand on her hip lifting her just a little higher. "Oh god!"

Feeling her beneath him, hearing how she screamed his name as a climax had her suddenly tightening around his rigid member, only drove the demon to new heights. He needed more of the blonde beauty, to taste how her blood sweetened as her arousal was driven higher and higher. Having her at his mercy like this, hearing the catch in her voice that was part sob and part a plea for more, and being able to see her hands clawing at the bedding enough to actually tear it while she pushed back against him was what he wanted more than anything while they were nothing more than naked and writhing in a tangle of limbs.

Jackal had always been able to bring this side of Lucy out, and she'd never once regretted it. Did it hurt, having his teeth digging into her flesh? His hands heating up just enough to be uncomfortable as he rolled her nipple between his fingers? Of course. But the pain was overshadowed by everything else.

" _Der'mo_ …" Jackal hissed as his teeth finally unlocked from the back of her neck. Lucy's hips rocked back with each heavy thrust, causing his eyes to roll back as he nestled his nose in her hair. " _Blyad'_... O-Oh, _yebat'da_!" The string of what she'd come to learn were curses in an ancient language signalled his end just as much as how her body was pressed further into the bed while his pace quickened. His hands found their way to hers, their fingers intertwining as he growled and pressed himself ever-closer. He could never get enough of her like this, her cries of pleasure rocketing through the air and her body so willingly giving in to his every whim.

Lucy's grip tightened on Jackal's hands as another growl vibrated into her. His lips and tongue laved over her neck and shoulders in wanting open-mouthed kisses that broke up the words he kept muttering. His harsh breaths heated her skin as he moved faster, their skin slapping violently as Lucy buried her face in the bedding beneath them.

Jackal's hand shot out to steady himself on the wall when Lucy's body was pushed forward. He didn't need a headboard, so luckily there was no banging from that hitting the wall. Still, as he neared his climax, he needed her to go with him.

Lucy's eyes widened as his arm hooked under her leg, the angle changing so suddenly that she couldn't decide what to do with herself. She was pinned beneath her demon, her body unable to move back into him any longer.  _'He's going to kill me… Oh, I don't even care anymore!'_  A guttural moan quickly became a scream, then another as he delved further into her than ever before. Her body shuddered as the heat in the room intensified and three whispered words were what finally threw her into the stars.

"I love you." Jackal's golden eyes rolled back and his bared teeth struck her uninjured shoulder as her core clenched around him, his fingers denting the wall as shot after shot of his release spilled into the blonde beauty who screamed his name in ecstasy. He hadn't realized before that he still held back while with Lucy, but right then, with her in his bed and knowing that she wanted the darker side of him to surface, he didn't worry that it was too much for her to handle. He gave her everything of himself, and felt the smile in her shuddering moan.

That, of course, resulted in the wall Jackal's hand had been on exploding. Neither the growling demon, nor the still moaning Celestial mage were aware of it though.

Jackal tenderly lapped up the blood seeping from Lucy's newest wound, a soft, sated smile sitting lazily on his lips as his arms wound around her. He didn't roll off to the side, instead choosing to simply curl around her just the way they were. He'd spent long enough without having Lucy around, and having her in his arms like this was what he'd been dreaming about since leaving Magnolia.

"Mmm, Jackal," Lucy hummed as his lips trailed over her skin to meet with hers. "I love y-" Her eyes barely peeked open as his wrist was pressed to her lips, and she gasped when she felt something wet and warm and tasting of copper and cinnamon dribbling into her mouth.

"Trust me," he whispered, lightly nipping at her ear. "It's to help." He grinned as her eyes closed, a quiet sigh leaving him once her tongue traced the punctures he'd made in his wrist with his teeth. "Demon blood's got this great healing property." Well, it did if the demon let you get close enough to actually get it in your mouth. And if the injuries were from the demon whose blood you were going for. "So, if I bite you like this again, you don't have to have scars or anything."

Lucy hummed, gently suckling the healing flesh and swallowing everything she could before it closed completely. It was weird, but there was a lot that was just downright odd when it came to the Etherious. And if her drinking a little bit of his blood - even though it tasted disgusting - would make it so she didn't have any scars, and that he could really let go with her, then she was all for it. Even after his skin was flawless once again, her lips didn't leave his arm until he chuckled and gently kissed her. When they separated, she sighed in contentment at the sight of her demon's openly happy expression. And then she frowned when she realized just how light it was in the room. Usually, she could hardly see where she was going - considering he preferred having his bedroom in near darkness - but now, a bright light was flowing in from just beside the bed.

Jackal, too, noticed just how much the blonde was glowing and he turned his head when she did, only to stare in horror at the gaping hole in the wall. One that led right into the throne room, where one Mard Geer was sitting on his throne and reading some thick tome settled in his lap.

"Did I do that?" Jackal whispered absently, cringing when Mard uncrossed his legs, then crossed them again without even a glance in their direction.

"I would suggest fixing that wall soon," Mard said without taking his eyes from the pages in front of him. His tongue swiped over a finger, then he slowly turned the page. "As in now, Jackal."

Lucy's eyes narrowed slightly when she thought she saw a familiar bathing suit on one of the pages of the book that was placed in Mard's lap. Really, from that distance, she couldn't tell  _what_  the King of the Underworld was reading. Still, the way Jackal quickly shifted - with her doing everything in her power to stifle the moan that wanted to escape as he finally withdrew from her - reminded her of just how mortifying it was to have quite literally been caught by Mard Geer of all people… demons… whatever.  _'This is worse than waking up naked with Gajeel…'_

Kyouka paused in a doorway across the vast throne room and scowled when she saw the hole in the wall, along with Jackal's far too naked body and a blonde head of hair that she assumed was Lucy. "I broke a beaker in the lab and got beaten for a week," she muttered. "He blows up a wall and doesn't even get a second glance?"

"Kyouka," Mard smirked. "You seem to have some free time…" It was rather difficult for him to hold back his amusement when the demon in question yelped uncharacteristically and dashed out of the room.

He turned to the next page, ignoring the sounds Jackal was making while he found some clothing for the blonde mage in his bed, and instead traced a finger of the white-haired woman with striking blue eyes in the magazine hidden in his book.  _'Mirajane Strauss… Takeover mage… I seem to remember Seilah mentioning you,'_ he thought. Maybe he would need to make a trip down to Fairy Tail after all. To promote interguild relations, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To see a continuation of Mard's own little section from the end of this chapter, check out my other story, _Unchain My Heart_.


	4. Filthy

 

"Papa," Eris laughed while hopping backwards through the halls of the guild toward the bar. "You're soaked!"

Jackal smirked down at the blonde girl with a matching pale blonde tail, gently pushing her muddy hair back from her forehead. "You're not much better, kiddo. I'd better help you get dry before you catch a cold."

She pouted and stopped in front of the bar, her furry ears that protruded slightly from the top of her head lowering. "I don't  _get_  colds, Papa. Mama's just overprotective."

"Sure," Jackal nodded. "But you're still half-human, which means there's a chance you  _could_  catch a cold. And if that happens, I'm not ashamed to admit your mom will have me in tears." The few rounds of chuckles from his fellow Fairy Tail guildmates at the bar had the demon clenching his fist to stop himself from just making them explode right then and there. Really, it was no secret just how terrifying his wife could get when she was in overprotective mode.

"What were you two doing out there?" Mira asked as she grabbed a few towels from beneath the bar. "It's been pouring all day."

"Playing," Eris grinned.

"... Playing?"

Jackal chuckled and shook his head. "Training. Pretty sure you don't want me teaching her how to blow shit up inside."

"Yes, we'd prefer if the guild remained mildly intact," Makarov laughed. "How did it go?"

"The rain kinda put a damper on it," Jackal shrugged. "She's getting the hang of it though."

"And then you tackled me to the ground when I tried to set your tail on fire," the little girl giggled.

"Which explains the bite marks," Mira said with a frown. Really, it was something she didn't understand about the demon and his daughter. Granted, Eris healed almost as fast as Jackal did, but she'd watched them 'playing' before, and it bordered on the man trying to rip out the child's throat.

"Yeah, but I bit his butt! You shoulda heard him yelp..." Eris smiled at the barmaid, reaching for a towel, then growled at her father when he swatted her hand away. "What was that for?"

"You don't need a damn towel."

"Well, I'm gonna need one to dry off!"

Mira's eyes softened while watching Jackal kneel down before his and Lucy's six-year-old daughter. The fact that the two had gotten together hadn't surprised the barmaid in the slightest, but the fact that they then got married and had a  _child_  together most definitely had. She could still admit that little Eris was the perfect combination of both Lucy and Jackal. She was every bit the demon's daughter in appearance - as far as the furry legs, tail, snout, eyes, and ears were concerned - but everything else about her was Lucy, through and through. Okay, plus the combination of both her parents' personalities.

"Eris," Jackal chuckled. "Why use a towel when you can do it like your old man?"

The girl's head tilted to one side in curiosity. "How, then?" she asked, her voice drowned out by the guild doors banging open to announce the guild's most destructive - even counting their newest demonic additions - team: Team Natsu.

"We're back!" Natsu shouted with a grin, his hair soaking and plastered to his forehead.

Lucy smiled and rolled her eyes, quietly shaking out her umbrella before walking through the open doors. It didn't take long for her gaze to fall on her husband of six-and-a-half years, or their daughter. And really, seeing the two of them sporting quite a few scratches that were already healing and covered head-to-toe in mud wasn't as surprising as it should have been. Jackal had some unspoken obsession with getting covered in mud while it was raining, and he was apparently passing down to their daughter. Or brainwashing her. Lucy wasn't really sure.

While a few guild members that she passed were eying her warily, probably wondering if she was about to blow up at the dirty duo, Lucy's smile stayed in place while she made her way closer to them. She wasn't going to yell though, because Jackal knew by then that, if he got their daughter utterly filthy like she was right then, then he got the utter privilege of getting her to take a bath… That, in itself, was revenge enough. Erza downright refused to babysit their daughter if bathing was involved. She apparently still had nightmares from the experience.

"I'll show you," Jackal smirked. He took a step away from his daughter towards the center of the guild, winking at his wife over his shoulder and spreading his legs a little wider. "Start with your head and move down, like this."

Lucy rolled her eyes and forewent her usual superstition about opening an umbrella inside as Jackal started shaking his head from one side to the other, his shoulders following suit, then the rest of his body. This one was mild in comparison to what she'd seen him do after playing outside with their daughter in the rain, so once it was finished, she lowered her still open umbrella and raised a brow at him. "Really? In the guild?"

He shrugged. "It's still raining out."

Lucy sighed and lifted her umbrella again only a moment before Eris tried to mimic her demonic father. "And you couldn't do this in the locker room?" she asked.

"No co-op locker rooms," he grinned. "Almost, pup. Try again." When Jackal placed his hands on his daughter's shoulders, he smirked and whispered, "Pretend you're doing Mama's silly dance."

Eris grinned up at her father, then scrunched her face and wiggled with everything she was worth. From her head to her shoulders, down to the tips of her fingers and toes. The pale green painted claws on her feet skittered over the floor, and she giggled when her father's hands clamped down on her shoulders to stop her.

"Perfect," he chuckled. "Such a smart pup."

"Are you two done now?" Lucy asked, still holding the umbrella up to shield herself. When she heard a grunt from her husband, Lucy sighed and closed the muddy umbrella, then walked over to her still dirty family that was only marginally drier than before. She laughed as his arms wound around her, his teeth lightly nipping at her jaw. "Hey, cutie."

"Missed you, Mama," Jackal growled playfully.

Freed sighed heavily at the bar, blinking slowly when Lucy and Jackal engaged in a far too intimate kiss for public… Or for children to witness. He raised an unamused, piqued brow while pulling his sullied cravat from his neck. "Hellspawn," he muttered under his breath. It wasn't like him to let such things past his filter, but this was the third time in a week that Eris had ruined his cravat. The fiftieth in only three months…

What the Rune mage hadn't realized was the heightened sense of hearing both Eris and Jackal had rivalled that of the Dragon Slayers. Father and daughter turned as one with identical grins that showed all of their sharpened, gleaming teeth, two sets of nearly glowing golden eyes locking onto the suddenly gulping Rune mage.

"I know, Mister Freed," Eris cooed. "Mama tells me every night before bed that I'm the cutest hellspawn ever created."

"I-I didn't-"

Mard Geer nodded from his seat just beside the sputtering Rune mage, one hand holding the Book of E.N.D. while the other rested on his finely tailored maroon jacket. "Yes, I've heard it myself."

Freed squeaked and whipped his head to the side, shivering as he looked right into the Underworld King's slitted onyx eyes.  _'Where did he come from?!'_

"She is rather precious for a half-demon," Mard smirked, looking down at the brilliant, toothy smile Eris directed at him.

Jackal blinked and drew back from Lucy's lips with a frown. "Are you… feeling alright?" he asked the black-haired demon.

"Yes, Jackal," Mard replied.

"You sure? You didn't call her 'half-human' for once..."

Mard Geer looked down at the splatters of mud covering the front of his body, with only the book in his hand having avoided the grime. "Your daughter has covered me in dirt without being killed," he mused. "I would say she's surpassed the level of a human at this point."

Freed fainted as Eris pranced past him to hug Mard, the latter simply lifting the book out of her reach and making no move to stop her otherwise. "Because I'm your favorite, Uncle Mard!"

Lucy snickered behind her hand when Jackal's jaw dropped to the floor, her eyes locking with Mard's. It seemed the only ones aware of just how much the little blonde half-demon could get away with where he was concerned were the two of them, and Lucy herself. Especially considering just how quiet the guild had gotten.

"Considering I was coerced into signing a contract to become your godfather, that is a moot point."

A sly grin pulled at Lucy's lips, and she stepped on Jackal's tail to get her husband functioning again. When he yelped and turned to glare at her, she only shrugged. "Time to head home. Baths for you two, and a nice hot shower for me."

"But, Mama!"

"Nope. Extra bubbles if you misbehave on the way. Now, march."

The fact that both Jackal's and Eris' ears lowered in defeat as their shoulders slumped wasn't lost on anyone, but not a single person in all of Fairy Tail could find the words to describe just how odd a sight it was. Or how terrifying it was that Lucy had tamed both her husband and daughter in the first place.

"Uh, Freed?" Bickslow asked carefully as he stopped by the bar to get a refill.

No response.

"Freed… You're twitching…" Bickslow blinked slowly as what appeared to be the Rune mage's soul floated out of his gaping mouth. "That's fucking creepy… You, uh… Have fun with that…"

Without another word, Bickslow walked back to his team's table, completely missing the devious smirk on Mard Geer's face as the demon stared down at his unconscious boyfriend.  _'Oh, this is too easy…'_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those following along, the story _Unchain My Heart_ takes place well before this chapter.


	5. Bloodlust

 

Jackal rested in his bed, his head propped on one hand while he stared down at the blonde Celestial mage lying next to him. Even while sleeping, maybe more than usual, she looked every bit the angel he called her - way too good and pure for a demon like himself, but more than willing to lay with him and try to save his cursed soul.

His tail curved around them beneath the blanket she insisted on using, even though she kicked it off partway through the night while visiting because he kept her warm enough without it. Lucy seemed to love waking up feeling the fur on his legs and tail tickling her, but he couldn't explain it. He really didn't understand just what made her tick more often than not, and while that would have been cause for him to torture her and make her explode before… Now he wanted to figure the blonde in his bed out in other ways. Spending time with her, regardless of how clothed they were, was at the top of his list.

He felt like a bit of a lost puppy without her.  _That_  made him want to blow something up.

He lifted a hand to lightly caress the side of her face, frowning down at the once again blackened skin running from his fingers up to his elbows. After they'd been defeated by her guild two years before, Lamy had helped to reconstruct the ones that needed it. The little bunny-eared weirdo had decided that Jackal needed to keep the furry legs, clawed feet, and tail, but that his arms should be the way they were before. And that his ears needed to be a little longer.  _'I'm never doing that shit again. Next she'll make me… Don't think about it…'_  He barely repressed a shudder at what the freak would do to him.

Even these hands that struck fear into the hearts and souls of the ones that had miraculously witnessed his curse and survived, Lucy loved them. She'd been one of those people, but she wasn't scared of him. She'd forgiven him, before he'd even realized that he needed her to, to make up for what he'd done.

"Mmm… Jackal…"

His frown instantly melted into a quiet smile as she rolled onto her back. Lucy wasn't aware of just how often she whispered his name in her sleep. It was part of why their relationship hadn't been able to stay secret for long. Natsu had apparently crept into her bed one night and, instead of screaming it in fear, Lucy had said her demonic boyfriend's name with a smile on her face while cuddling closer to the Fire Dragon Slayer.

That had been a fun day of explanations. Mard was still glaring at him over the charred heavy curtains in the throne room from Natsu's tantrum when he'd shown up at Tartarus' newly rebuilt guild. There weren't even windows in there, but the asshole  _needed_  curtains.

Lucy shifted again, and the gentle scent of lilac drifted up into his sinuses, soothing the beast within as he curled around her a little more.

He'd never expected to be with her like this, especially not when they met, but now that he was, Jackal really didn't want to think of his life any other way. Seven months of being in a relationship, even though they hardly got to spend time together like they really wanted to, and he was hooked.

Her golden hair and soulful eyes. Rose petal lips that could make someone cry from being so happy, or run in fear while she was screaming at them. Her skin was soft, supple, but it was the scars that she had that he loved to feel. She was a fighter, and even though he'd found out that her knee still acted up from the day she'd summoned the Spirit King, when he'd caused an explosion to shatter it, he knew from experience that the Celestial mage would do anything to protect the ones she loved.

The fact that he now fell under that category still confused him, sometimes.

The gentle rise and fall of her chest drew his gaze lower to find the blanket had fallen by the wayside, revealing her breasts and nipples that puckered in the cooler air of the room. It wouldn't have been as cold as it was in there if Lucy hadn't mentioned that he was overly warm, and she would sweat if they snuggled. He definitely wasn't complaining about that, though.

His thumb brushed the line of her jaw before letting his fingers traverse her slender, pale throat, then down between her breasts to her navel. Suddenly, not being able to sleep was a wonderful thing. He'd tried, and had succeeded for a few hours, but something about her scent had darkened, grown sweeter than normal, and had woken him up. He couldn't tell what it was, and Lucy was a downright terror when woken up before she was really ready, so Jackal had resigned himself to trying to figure out just what it was while he watched her sleep. For the past three hours, he'd just been watching her cuddle with him.

"You're so damn beautiful," he whispered, his fingers circling her navel then gliding from one hip to the other. When they were around others, and more often than not when it was just the two of them, he wouldn't be caught dead saying anything like that. Lucy seemed to know, even without Jackal saying a thing, what he thought of her. How she did, he wasn't sure, but the way she smiled at him when he had an errant thought about his feelings for her, had Jackal believing the blonde in his arms was a mind reader.

He leaned down slowly, brushing his nose over the shell of her ear when she turned her head away from him. It took everything in him not to laugh when he heard a soft snore rumbling in the back of her throat. Instead, he kissed the little earring in her cartilage shaped like Aquarius' symbol that he'd given her as an olive branch seven months before. The same day she'd surprised them both by asking him out on a date.

"Lucy," he whispered. "Can I wake you up now?"

He knew he wouldn't get a response. She was an alarmingly heavy sleeper when she wanted to be.

Still, he wanted to do more than just watch her sleep. They didn't always have time together like they would for the next nine days - since she'd told her team to suck it and let her spend time with her boyfriend, and Jackal just refused to do anything but be with her while she had the time - and the past five days they'd already spent together were amazing. What they were going to do, he wasn't sure, but Lucy would probably have an idea or two.

She just had to wake up to tell him what she had in mind.

' _Well, I could always wake her up with a smile on her face.'_

With that thought in mind, his smile turned devious. He pushed the blanket to the floor with one foot, and shifted so he was straddling the blonde. "Lucy," he crooned, his lips brushing over her neck in small nips and kisses. "Time to wake up, angel."

He paused while moving down her body, a smile on his lips as his tongue circled one pert nipple. His lips closed around it, teeth gently scraping over her sensitive flesh, and a quiet breath gusted past her barely parted lips.

His hands found their way to her pinched waist, gliding over the swell of her hips. "Lucy," he murmured against her navel. "Puppy wants to play…"

That nickname she'd given him was only ever to be used while they were alone. Only by her. But sometimes, he couldn't help himself. Especially when it got her attention and usually had her caving to whatever he was asking of her.

By the time he was kneeling between her legs, Jackal's body was roaring to life. That darker tinge to her usually bright, lilac scent was calling to him, forcing him to lick his lips so he didn't quite literally drool right then and there.

"You're gonna kill me," he growled. She still slept. Even as his thumbs ghosted over her sex, slowly adding more pressure with each pass until he was spreading her lips open. "Fuck, you smell good…"

A quiet whimper sounded from the unconscious blonde as Jackal nuzzled her sex, his breath stuttering over her while he tried to hold back.

"Lucy, wake up or I'll do it." He smirked while looking up at her. His tongue glided over his lips before closing them around the small bundle of nerves that was just begging him for attention.

Another whimper in the air, but nothing more from her.

It always took a little more work than Jackal would have liked when he was like this, because the last thing he needed was to maim his girlfriend's crotch from getting too excited. The only time she hated his sharpened teeth was when they were between her legs. And really, he didn't blame her. If things were reversed, he wouldn't want a mouth like his anywhere near his dick, regardless of the level of control they used to make sure he wasn't shredded to ribbons.

"... O-Ohh…"

Jackal chuckled against her core, carefully slipping a finger into her and watching her every natural reaction. Her breathing turned more ragged as the minutes ticked by. A small pinch appeared between her brow and her fingers skittered over the deep black bedspread.

"... Mmnh…"

His eyes slid shut and his free hand slithered up the length of her body to gently palm one breast. If he'd thought her scent was alluring, her taste was utterly intoxicating. When the demon had found out, the first time they'd had sex, that she'd never had a guy go down on her, he'd been ready to give up on the intelligence of humans altogether. And he was quick to remedy the travesty that was her sexual experience before him.

He hadn't minded that they'd just finished at the time, or that he'd been tasting his own cum as her sex had spasmed around his tongue. That night, all he'd cared about was getting her to scream, seeing the wild look in her eyes, and the fact that her neighbors were considering calling the cops because they thought she might be getting murdered. It was pretty humorous that they decided to leave it be and see if she came out of the apartment the next morning.

And ever since then, Jackal had made a point of getting his face between her legs as often as he could. Seeing her blush when he made it obvious what he had in mind was, surprisingly, adorable. Lucy was quick with a perverted joke, but this one thing  _always_  had her blushing. He could, and would if she'd let him, spend hours like that. Call it him actually actually being part jackal, but he loved licking her. Tasting her. Hearing her panting, crying out his name. Feeling how her legs would tremble before locking around his head. Holding her down so she couldn't move when her climax came barreling through her shuddering body.

Lucy's eyes fluttered open as a low growl rumbled through the darkened room, feeling breathless and already trembling. "J-Jackal?"

"Mm-hmm," he moaned against her, his fingers moving faster now that she was awake.

"O-Oh god, what… Jackal…" She couldn't look away from his face nestled between her legs, his eyes open and locked onto her heaving chest. She could feel the weight of his gaze pressing down on her breast and up the column of her throat as his golden eyes finally met with hers.

Jackal growled again once her shaking fingers sifted through his hair. His hand pulled back and he nearly attacked her sex with his lips and tongue. She cried out, bringing a hand to her lips to muffle her pleasure, but that only pushed him forward. She knew he loved hearing her, and he would do anything in his power to make it so she couldn't hide what he was doing to her. "Don't," he snarled in warning.

"J-Jackal, I - Oh fuck, Jackal!"

Just as he'd expected, her legs locked around his head and her back bowed from the bed. And he was in the perfect position to taste every bit of her. He was sure this was what ambrosia, the food of the gods, really tasted like. It had to be. It was when she'd finally come back to herself, with her legs falling limp and her half-lidded eyes peering down at him, that the blond demon pulled back with a frown. The suddenly coppery taste in his mouth was unexpected, and a little alarming. "Well, shit," he muttered.

"Huh?"

"I think my teeth scratched you a bit… You're bleeding."

Lucy's brow pinched with worry, and she completely ignored how weird it was for her boyfriend to stare at her crotch as intently as he was. Really, she didn't know if it was something she would ever get used to. No matter how sexy some people found it, she thought it was just embarrassing to have someone staring at her that way.

But that wasn't really what was important. Jackal was checking to see where he'd hurt her, and she was trying to figure out why she wasn't in any pain.

It was when he looked up at her though that Lucy gasped in horror. Sure, he'd mentioned that she was bleeding, but the sight of blood on his lips had her cringing. And it was only worsened when a sudden sharp pain speared through her lower belly and radiated down to her knees. "Oh, no…"

"Well, I didn't cut you," he frowned, licking his lips. "Tastes different than normal blood…"

"Oh my god," Lucy whimpered. Really, this couldn't be happening. "Jackal, move."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because I need to go to the bathroom and handle my period… Oh my god, this is-" Why she hadn't realized just how close it was to the end of the month was beyond her. She'd packed the necessities before leaving, so  _why_  hadn't she actually figured out it would be happening?  _'I'm an idiot... Oh god, this is so embarrassing!'_

"Period?"

Lucy froze, staring down at the demon who hadn't moved an inch. And was, still, licking the blood from his lips. Then sucking his lower lip to get off what he'd missed. "Yeah," she nodded slowly. "Y'know, the thing that tells me I'm not pregnant?"

"Huh," Jackal frowned. "That's weird. I thought you said women took tests to figure that out."

"W-Well, they do, but that's if they miss… Do you really have no idea what I'm talking about?" When he slowly shook his head, Lucy was reminded in stark detail just how different humans and demons were. And how little her boyfriend knew about anything other than what he and the other demons of Tartarus had been doing since their creation.

They were, for the most part, hermits. Sure, they each had their own hobbies - like Jackal being an artist, and Mard Geer having a nearly unhealthy obsession with books - but she'd thought maybe he would have known how anatomy worked. Especially since, as Kyouka had come to find out, demons and humans  _could_  procreate. Cobra, the poor soul, seemed to have been the first one to realize he'd impregnated the woman, but Lucy still wasn't sure how he'd managed to survive her tirade until she'd collapsed into a ball of happy tears in his arms, right in front of Mard Geer's throne.

"What did I miss?" Jackal asked carefully.

"W-Well, uh… This is awkward… B-Because, well…" She winced and gave him a helpless shrug. "Good news is, I'm not pregnant?"

"Okay?" Really, he didn't understand what the big deal was. Or why she was bleeding, actually. Or how she knew that it was a period and not that he'd actually hurt her. Based on the discomfort he could see on her face as she shifted, he wasn't so sure she wasn't just hurt. "But that doesn't explain anything."

"You're not gonna make this easy, are you," she grumbled. If she just stayed lying down for a little while longer, maybe she'd be alright. Hopefully. The last thing Lucy needed was to bleed all over the bed.  _'Hello, Freddy Krueger… Drag my ass over the ceiling while you're at it?'_

"I don't get what the problem is," he shrugged, still not moving from where he was between her legs. "So you bled a little bit. Kyouka said that's actually a sign you might  _be_  pregnant." He'd never heard any of the three female demons talking about something like this. He was sure he would have smelled it if they randomly started bleeding. But, since becoming pregnant, Kyouka had decided that Jackal was the one that needed to be her punching bag when she was pissed - because, apparently, Cobra needed to stay alive and help her care for the hellspawn he'd made with her. And when she was beating Jackal, she tended to vent about everything she was reading in the dozens of books Mard Geer had given her on pregnancy.

"Trust me," Lucy sighed. "I'm not."

"Okay," Jackal shrugged again. He wasn't going to mention the fact that he'd dreamt about Lucy carrying a litter of his little ones. Mostly because, when Cobra had heard it, he'd cracked the fuck up over Jackal thinking of it as a litter. Humans apparently only had one baby at a time, unless under some special circumstances. He wasn't sure if his genes would make it one of those special circumstances for Lucy, though. And she was nowhere near being ready for kids, he already knew. "So, you're not pregnant..."

"So, wh-where babies grow," Lucy said slowly, pointing a finger to the general area of her uterus, "If the egg isn't fertilized, uh…"

"You've got eggs?" Jackal asked, tilting his head to the side. "Weird…"

Lucy face-palmed. "Oh my god…"

"So, not fertilized?"

"Right," she sighed, looking back down at him. "There's this… lining. And a woman's body sheds it, and it comes out as a period over the course of a week, give or take a couple days. Partially blood, some cells… It's really fucking gross, actually."

Jackal looked down at the apex of her thighs with a thoughtful frown. "Are you gonna die?"

"What?! No!"

"Well, you're going to bleed for a week," he said. "I'm just saying, most humans would die if they bled for a week. Or get an infection…"

"I'm not going to die, Jackal."

"Are you sure?" he asked, his brow pinched and his voice serious.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Really,  _really_  sure. I've been having these since I was twelve, so…"

"How are you not dead yet?"

"I'm not going to die!" Lucy screeched, sitting up slightly, then paling as a familiar feeling swept over her. "Fuck, move before I bleed all over your bed!"

Jackal scowled up at the blonde, then leaned down and pressed his nose to her sex.

"What the fuck are you doing?!"

"Shut up for a second…" After taking in the new scent coming from her, his tongue tentatively slid from between his lips, swiping over her.

"J-Jackal! That's gross!" Lucy's eyes widened as his mouth pressed more insistently to her body, and she collapsed back onto the bed when he roughly pushed her shoulders down. Her legs kicked at him helplessly, and she screeched when his tongue speared into her sex. "What are you doing?"

A quiet moan sounded from the demon and he pulled back slightly to grin up at his girlfriend. "That's what that smell was," he chuckled, watching her go red in the face from embarrassment. "You smelled sweeter, but I couldn't figure out why…"

"S-Sweeter?"

Jackal nodded quickly, moaning as his lips closed over her again.

"Okay, but…" Lucy gasped as two fingers pushed into her as his tongue flicked over her sensitive bud. "Wh-Why are you… Oh, Jackal…"

The scent of her blood in the air, so close to his nose and lips, was driving him wild. As soon as Lucy stopped fighting his insistence on being where he was, instead giving in and rolling her hips into his pistoning fingers, he didn't hold himself back. He couldn't, and when she eventually crested that peak into bliss, there was nothing stopping him from continuing to lap up every bit of her essence he could.

* * *

Lucy gulped down as much air as she could when Jackal finally lifted his head to grin down at her. "M-My legs are numb," she panted.

He chuckled, eagerly licking the redness from his fingers. The banging on his door, which had happened repeatedly over the last few hours, had done nothing to curb his sudden insatiable appetite for the Celestial mage. Cobra could go fuck himself with all of his grumbling about what they were doing. Jackal already knew that Kyouka was laid out on her back a few doors down. He could smell them having sex from where he was if he focused enough. "Good," he whispered.

Just the sight of Lucy sprawled out on his bed, the sheets mussed and torn from her clawing at them, had him ready to pounce on her, regardless of how exhausted he knew she was. His arousal was aching by then, having been denied for far too long already, but the last thing he wanted to do was make her sore. And really, with the way he was feeling, she would be.

She sighed with a smile on her lips as he began licking her thighs, then her hips. She would have thought it was a sweet gesture while he slowly moved back up to her breasts, except she'd caught a glimpse of several smeared, bloody handprints on her stomach the last time he'd slowed down to give her a small reprieve. For however long he'd been going to town, Jackal had alternated between sending her soaring - growling the whole while - and tenderly kissing and lapping at her sex. He hadn't been able to keep his hands contained to where his face was, which resulted in her looking like a murder victim. "My cramps are gone," she whispered.

"Didn't realize you had a cramp," he smirked. "You should've told me."

"No," she giggled. "Cramps. Part of this whole period thing."

"Oh," he chuckled, brushing his nose just under her navel. "Here?" When Lucy nodded, her fingers sifting through his hair to lightly scrape across his scalp and just behind his ears, he hummed happily and kissed her lower belly. "Well, you're welcome then."

"I still can't believe you did that," she whispered after several minutes in silence.

"Did what? Eat you out? You're like a yummy Lucy buffet."

She rolled her eyes as his head rested on her chest, ignoring the fact that his black fingers had been covered in her blood moments before as they gently caressed her cheek. "Dork," she laughed. "I meant getting your red wings."

When he was silent, she rolled her eyes again.

"Eating me out," she said with a blush, "While I'm on my period. It's called red wings."

Jackal grinned, turning his head to rest his chin on her chest. "You  _do_  realize I love how blood tastes, right? Like… it's kind of a thing for me."

"I'm gonna throw glitter on you and start calling you Edward," she shuddered. "Don't say that."

"I'm a demon, not some stupid glittery vampire that looks like he's constantly trying to shit," he said pointedly. "Part  _jackal_ … You do realize what jackals eat, right?"

"Everything," she laughed.

"Opportunistic omnivores," he said with a smug grin. "Blood's part of the deal. So, you bleeding, and how fucking  _delicious_  you smell right now… Yeah, I've got no problem with it."

"You're ridiculous," she sighed, shaking her head.

"Maybe." He paused and kissed the center of her chest, his eyes closing when he felt how his arousal was pinned between their bodies. "How long did you say this lasts for?"

"A week…"

"This is gonna be the best week ever," he chuckled.

"I'm  _not_  spending the whole week cooped up in this room on my back!"

He cackled and wrapped his arms around her, then rolled so she was lying on top of him. "I never said you were."

"What the hell?!" Lucy watched in horror as he slid down the bed so she was hovering over his head. "Are you kidding me?"

Jackal's grin widened, his eyes twinkling darkly. "C'mon, angel," he nearly purred. "I like it."

Lucy looked over her shoulder to find his hand wrapped around his arousal, then frowned. The disappointed whimper from him when she moved and pushed his hand away was well worth it. Especially as she turned fully and straddled his head again, then laid down on his stomach.

He gasped when her hand replaced his, the feel of her lightly calloused fingers gripping the base of his shaft making him shiver. "If I didn't love you before, I definitely do now," he groaned as her tongue dragged up his length. "Fuck…"

A quiet moan spilled from her as he pushed her legs further apart, lowering her sex to his waiting mouth. As his strong hands wrapped around her hips, she felt his feral growl rumbling through her body.

"L-Lucy…"

One thing was for sure. She wasn't going to tell him right away that this happened every month.  _'We'll never leave the bed again if he finds out…'_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where JackaLu Week 2016 ends, with the exception of the side stories in this universe ( _Beer Goggles_ and _Unchain My Heart_ ) and then the two entries for JackaLu Week that weren't in this universe at all ( _Culinary Explosion_ and _Mobster_ ).


End file.
